Sir Paul McCartney has revealed he refuses to take photos with fans - and taken a swipe at influencer culture.
The Beatles legend, 83, has been a music icon for six decades, having shot to fame with the legendary band in the 1960s.
However, McCartney said he is eager to hold onto a semblance of normality in his everyday life, sharing that fans wanting to take selfies makes him “feel like a monkey”.
He revealed he’ll go into “long explanations” with fans about why he won’t pose for photos - and admitted even Oprah Winfrey questioned his “radical” stance.
“As time's gone by, things have changed. Now - phones. So if I meet someone, they're reaching for their phone, and I say: ‘I'm sorry, I don't do pictures,’” he told Richard Osman and Marina Hyde on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast.
“And that is radical these days. I told that to Oprah - I'm name-dropping now - and she said: ‘You don't do pictures?’ I said: ‘No.’ She said: ‘Why?’ I said: ‘I don't want to.’ It's as simple as that.”
McCartney - who is set to release a new album - went on: “I have a long explanation - I say I don't like to do it because something important to me, something related to your question about innocence and staying normal, would be lost.
“The minute I start thinking I'm something above myself, I won't like me. It's very important for me to just be me. So I say to people: I don't want to do photos.
“And they say: ‘Why?’ And I say: ‘I'll tell you what...’ - and I go into this long explanation about how, down on the south coast of France in Saint-Tropez, there's a man on the beachfront who has a monkey, and you pay to have your photo taken with the monkey.
“I really do not want to feel like that monkey. And when I take a picture with someone, I do feel like him. I'm not me anymore - I'm suddenly something else.”
McCartney also hit out at “untalented” influencers when asked what baffles him most about the 21st century.
“I think a lot of this influencer stuff - I just don't really get it, because I'm not that generation,” he admitted.
“But you can't help seeing it. My wife will be looking at Instagram and showing me something, and then one of those will come on.
“I think it's funny - and I suppose it always happened - but people who don't seem to be particularly talented are incredibly famous. Billions of hits and views.
“You've got to be careful about saying that, because it makes you sound very old-fashioned. Which I am.”
McCartney made the comments after releasing a duet with his former Beatles bandmate Sir Ringo Starr.
The song, Home To Us, was released on Friday and is part of McCartney’s forthcoming solo album.
The new album, titled The Boys Of Dungeon Lane, recounts a collection of memories from the singer’s formative years in Liverpool, including his early adventures with his late bandmates George Harrison and John Lennon, prior to their Beatles fame.
He named the introspective 14-track record after Dungeon Lane, a place close to his childhood home in Forthlin Road in the Liverpool suburb of Speke.
The album, his first in five years, is due to be released on May 29, with the musician previously describing the inspiration behind it as “a lot of memories of Liverpool”.
