Paul McCartney admits he was 'racist' as a child

'It was just the normal thing to use certain words that you wouldn’t use now,' says Sir Paul

Sir Paul made headlines at the end of May when he defended Kanye West’s repeated use of the N-word

Sir Paul McCartney has said he used racist words as a child because it was “normal” then.

The 73-year-old musician explained that while growing up in Liverpool in the 50s and 60s, he used “certain words” but was unaware they were offensive.

Sir Paul said it was perceived as a joke but as he got older he began to understand the language was “denigrating”.

“When I was a kid, you were racist without knowing it,’ he told the Mail on Sunday's Event Magazine. “It was just the normal thing to use certain words that you wouldn’t use now.”

“Along the way we suddenly realised how it would make the people you were talking about feel,” he continued. “I don’t think until then we’d ever even thought about other people. It was like a joke between ourselves.”

“But then someone points out, ‘Well, that’s denigrating…' you know, in my case, black people. And then the penny drops, and I think that’s what happened for a lot of people. Certainly a lot of people in my generation used to use words you wouldn’t use now.”

Sir Paul also defended Kanye West’s use of the N-word and said the word was a term of endearment among younger generations of black people.

“Kanye’s an artist,” McCartney said. “He can say what he wants. It’s the freedom of speech, literally. The N-word, to a lot of black people, particularly younger black people, it’s almost a term of endearment.”

“It’s a slang word," he added. "And I think the good thing about it is that it kind of takes the sting out of it. It just becomes a word, rather than the derogatory word it could be used as."

Sir Paul made headlines at the end of May when he defended West’s repeated use of the N-word and said it was justifiable in the context in which he uses it. Sir Paul collaborated with West on the track 'All Day' which reportedly uses the N-word 39 times.

West performed the song at the Brit Awards this year but the performance was heavily censored by ITV. This divided viewers and Ofcom received 151 complaints.