At 86, Ringo Starr has spent more than six decades in the public eye as the Beatles’ legendary drummer, known for his peace-and-love message and his enduring marriage to Barbara Bach. But behind that cheerful public image, the former Beatle has maintained a deeply personal inner circle that shaped his life away from the cameras. Now, he has opened up about the six people who meant the most to him throughout his life. Long before Beatlemania transformed Richard Starkey into Ringo Starr, there was Maureen Cox, a young hairdresser who knew him simply as the drummer from Liverpool.
They met in the early 1960s when she was a regular around the Cavern Club, where the Beatles performed. At that time, Ringo was still building his career with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and their relationship developed before fame changed everything. When Ringo joined the Beatles in 1962, Maureen remained beside him through his transformation from a local musician into one of the most famous men alive. By 1965, Ringo proposed to her at London’s Ad Lib Club, and they married on February 11th of that year at Caxton Hall.
The couple had three children together: Zak, Jason, and Lee. The marriage, however, was not a fairy tale. The pressures of Ringo’s life, along with his infidelity, drinking, and other personal struggles, placed serious strain on the relationship. Maureen and Ringo separated, and their divorce was finalized in 1975.
Their separation followed a complicated period that included George Harrison becoming involved with Maureen, a situation that deeply complicated the friendships among all three of them. Despite the painful endings, their history ran too deep to be erased. In 1994, Maureen was diagnosed with leukemia. Though they had been divorced for nearly two decades, Ringo visited her during her final days and remained close to their children as they faced her death.
Maureen died in December 1994 at the age of 47. Barbara Bach entered Ringo’s life at a very different moment. By 1980, when they met while working on the film Caveman, Ringo was no longer the young drummer suddenly thrust into fame. He had already experienced worldwide celebrity, the collapse of his first marriage, and years of personal struggles.
Barbara was an established actress, best known internationally for playing Bond girl Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me. She understood what it meant to live with fame. The relationship moved quickly. Ringo and Barbara married on April 27th, 1981, just months after meeting, at London’s Marylebone Register Office.
Both Ringo and Barbara eventually became sober, and they have spoken publicly about how important that decision was to their lives together. They built a quieter, healthier routine around each other, deliberately choosing stability. Ringo has repeatedly spoken about how much he loves and admires Barbara, often describing their relationship in terms of companionship. They travel together, work on projects together, and have remained closely connected through decades in the public eye.
Barbara appeared in his music video for Give Peace a Chance and has supported his All-Starr Band career. Their marriage has now lasted more than four decades, longer than either spent in many of the earlier chapters of their lives. John Lennon was not simply Ringo’s bandmate. When Ringo joined the Beatles in 1962, he stepped into a band that already had a tight friendship and strong identity.
John could have treated the new drummer as an outsider. Instead, Ringo quickly became part of the inner circle, with their relationship built around humor and mutual affection. Ringo was not interested in competing with John, and his dry sense of humor meant he could give as good as he got. The bond between them was forged through experiencing something almost impossible together: recording albums, touring the world, and watching their private lives disappear under constant public attention.
After the Beatles broke up, Ringo remained friendly with all three former bandmates, and John continued to have a place in his life. In 1973, John contributed the song I’m the Greatest to Ringo’s album Ringo, with Paul and George also participating in the project. Then came December 1980, when John was murdered outside his home in New York. Ringo later spoke about how devastating John’s death was and how difficult it was to accept that his friend was gone.
He remembered John as a person, not a mythology: a funny man, a complicated man, who could be irritating one minute and incredibly warm the next. George Harrison was more than a fellow Beatle. He knew Ringo through almost every version of his adult life, from the hungry young musicians in Liverpool to worldwide fame and the years that followed the band’s breakup. Both men came from Liverpool’s music scene, and they connected because neither needed to be the loudest person in the room.
George could be intensely private and thoughtful, while Ringo was known for his humor and laid-back personality. George was a major supporter of Ringo’s solo career, contributing as a musician and songwriter to help Ringo establish an identity beyond the Beatles. Their friendship was not limited to music; they shared an unusual sense of humor and a familiarity that came from years of knowing each other’s habits and personalities. When George became involved with Maureen during Ringo’s troubled marriage, the situation could easily have destroyed their bond.
Somehow, the friendship survived. When George became seriously ill in 2001, Ringo traveled to see him along with his wife Barbara. It would be one of the last times the two friends saw each other. George Harrison died on November 29th, 2001, at the age of 58.
For Ringo, the loss was devastating. He had already lost John Lennon two decades earlier, and another piece of the Beatles story was gone. Ringo has continued to speak about George with affection, remembering the humor, the music, and the friendship they shared. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr spent some of the most extraordinary years of their lives side by side.
They met as young musicians in Liverpool long before either could have imagined their futures. When Ringo joined the Beatles in 1962, he was joining musicians he already knew. Paul was intensely focused on the music and often demanding in the studio, while Ringo brought a looseness and warmth that kept the atmosphere from becoming completely consumed by pressure. Paul understood exactly what Ringo could contribute.
Ringo’s strength was serving the song, finding the right rhythm, and making the performance feel natural. Paul recognized that quality and frequently wrote with Ringo’s playing in mind. Their friendship also grew outside the recording studio, shaped by the shared experience of four young men who suddenly had almost no privacy. The Beatles’ breakup brought tension, disagreements, and periods when they were not particularly close.
Yet the friendship never completely disappeared. Paul contributed to Ringo’s solo records, and Ringo appeared on Paul’s projects. In 1973, Paul contributed the song Six O’Clock to Ringo’s album Ringo, which also included contributions from John and George, briefly reconnecting all four Beatles through music. After John was murdered in 1980 and George died in 2001, Paul and Ringo became the last surviving members of the band.
That reality brought a different dimension to their relationship. In later years, their friendship became noticeably warmer and more public. Paul has spoken about his affection for Ringo, while Ringo has described Paul as his brother. Their relationship survived enormous success, enormous pressure, creative disagreements, personal conflict, and the breakup of a partnership that had once seemed unstoppable.
Before there was Ringo Starr, there was Richard Starkey, a boy growing up in Liverpool with a complicated relationship with his father. Richard Starkey Senior married Elsie Gleave, and together they had their only child. The family lived in the Dingle area of Liverpool, where Ringo spent his early childhood. His father worked as a confectioner’s decorator while his mother worked to support the family.
The marriage did not last. When Ringo was still very young, his parents separated, and his father largely disappeared from his everyday life. Ringo grew up primarily with his mother, Elsie, who became the central figure in his childhood. Ringo suffered from tuberculosis as a child and spent extended periods in hospital, with his mother remaining by his side.
Richard Senior missed much of that difficult period. Years later, Ringo would talk about his father with a mixture of affection, distance, and understanding rather than simple resentment. As Ringo became famous, the two men were able to rebuild a relationship that had been missing during much of his childhood. Richard Senior had given him his name, his roots, and a connection to the life that existed before fame.
Richard Starkey Senior died in 1967 while Ringo was still at the height of Beatlemania. The world was watching the Beatles become more famous than anyone could have imagined, but privately, Ringo had lost his father. Their story was shaped as much by absence as by affection.
Ringo’s love for his father was not the uncomplicated love of a son who had been given everything he needed; it was the love of someone who had grown old enough to understand that a person’s importance in your life is not always measured by how often they were physically there.
