Paul McCartney confirms he appeared on The Simpsons on condition that Lisa Simpson stayed vegetarian

Former Beatle appeared with his late wife Linda in the 1995 episode, where Lisa Simpson decides to stop eating meat

Paul McCartney has confirmed that he and his late wife Linda McCartney were behind character Lisa Simpson’s long-running vegetarianism on The Simpsons.

The McCartneys appeared as themselves in the 1995 episode titled “Lisa the Vegetarian”, in which Lisa vows to stop eating meat after encountering the couple.

In March 2020, show consultant David Mirkin, who is also a vegetarian, said that the McCartneys wanted Lisa to continue avoiding meat “in perpetuity” after their guest episode.

“He always checks,” Mirkin told the Radio Times earlier this year. “And he’s always surrounded by nine or 10 lawyers, so it’s quite frightening.”

“We were a bit worried that she would be a vegetarian for a week, then Homer would persuade her to eat a hot dog,” McCartney has since told GQ magazine.

“The producers of the programme assured us that she would remain that way, and they kept their word.”

In the same interview, McCartney spoke of how hurt he was when fans and the media blamed him for The Beatles split.

“I think I was thought to be the guy who broke The Beatles up and the bastard who sued his mates,” he said. “And, believe me, I bought into that.”

He continued: “That’s the weirdest thing. It was so prevalent that for years I almost blamed myself. I knew that that was stupid and when we eventually got back together I knew it was silly, but I think it spawned a lot of people who thought that of me.”

Read the full GQ interview here.