Extract from Peter Brown and Steve Gaines’ new book, All You Need is Love: The End of the Beatles, Ringo Starr delved into detail about the harrowing ordeal in Manila, revealing how The Beatles miraculously managed to escape the country without being seriously hurt.
The extract taken from Steve Gaines’ interview with Ringo Starr:
SG: Manila? Did you get beaten up?
RS: No, we didn’t get beaten up in Manila. We arrived in Manila, and there was a motorcade of cops and security and madness, we played the gig.
PB: I remember we went on a boat first.
RS: That’s right, we did go on a boat . . .
PB: And Neil was left behind because they wanted to search his handbag. Or something.
SG: The baggage didn’t go on the boat?
PB: That’s where they wanted you to stay, we said, “No, we’re not going to stay on this boat.”
RS: I thought the boat was just to have a drink and say hello to Manila.
PB: No, I think they wanted you to stay.
RS: The main point of the story was that Mrs. Marcos wanted to see us, but we said no, because we didn’t want to do it. We were doing the gig, and those functions aren’t the most fun anyway. But she said, “You’re not going anywhere.” John and I don’t know anything about it. We woke up in the morning and phone down for the newspapers. We want to see what they like about us, and did the show go over well? Nothing. We figured it was just a weirdo town where they don’t give you room service. I called down again to get the papers. Nothing. Madness. We turn on the TV and we see the news and they pan up to all these little kids, and they were saying that we didn’t show. So it was all over the TV. They hated us, and we were left with one policeman, after coming in with a thousand. We get to the airport, and it was madness, and John and I were hiding behind nuns. We thought because it’s a Catholic country, if we hid behind the nuns, they won’t get us. They wouldn’t let us go anywhere. They sent us upstairs? We sat up there, they hassled us about the tickets, we came down again, they just came, moving us around while people were shouting at us in this weird language. Then we finally got to the plane. They spat on us. No one got punched.
PB: Mal was pushed over.
RS: Okay, you want to make it a big story? Mal was tripped. I didn’t see Mal get tripped. I was not punched in the back. None of us were physically hurt —we were spat on, we were humiliated, but we were not physically damaged. So we get to the plane, and there’s an announcement that our press man, Tony Barrow, and Mal Evans had to get off the plane. We thought, now they’re taking us off two by two to shoot us. We didn’t know. But they just took them off for several minutes, they got back on, and we flew off. Anyway, that’s how we got out of Manila. We went to India.
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