Beatlemania swept through Toronto when the British rock group was set to perform their first show in the city in September 1964. Tasia Richards, who was 16 at the time, found herself caught up in the excitement.
She remembered wanting Paul McCartney to be her first kiss. She wasn’t sure why or how, but she was determined to make it happen.
Tasia Richards recalls kissing Paul McCartney
Richards decided to share her story via Yahoo in hopes of inspiring other people to chase after their dreams. She wants to get the rocker’s autograph, something she’s been chasing after for more than 60 years.
Richards recalled why she wanted him to be her first kiss. She was so serious about it that she prayed, surrounded by her collection of Beatles memorabilia, for it to happen.
“Two weeks later, I went, ‘What the heck was that all about?’ … I thought, ‘This is crazy, this is never going to happen, snap out of it,’ because I had common sense enough to know that’s impossible,” Richards said. “And then I would always finish with, ‘But that’s what I want.'”
The Beatles returned to Toronto in August 1965 and again in 1966. By the latter visit, 18-year-old Richards was determined to get at least an autograph from McCartney, if not a kiss. Driven by her perseverance, she found a way to sneak into the press conference ahead of the show.
Carrying a camera around her neck, Richards approached McCartney, took a few photos, and asked for his autograph. Since he didn’t have a piece of paper or a pen with him, he pointed to a man at the podium, who signaled back to her that she would eventually receive it.
After the press conference, she said the man from the podium told her that McCartney, 24 at the time, had invited her to the band’s hotel suite after the show.
“I remember my friends watching the second concert, and me being in the bathroom combing my hair and putting my eyeliner on and getting myself ready,” Richards said with a laugh.
It didn’t feel like it was real, Richards said, until she walked onto the eighth floor of the King Edward Hotel and the man from the podium took her jacket and told her he was glad she could make it. Inside, she recalled George Harrison introducing himself, to which she replied, “Oh yeah, you think I don’t know who you are?”
Finally, McCartney came in. She remembered him coming up to her, lightly touching her on the shoulder and saying, “I’m so glad you could make it.” She said he later sat on an ottoman and positioned his arms on her knees so he could watch television, while she recalled her knees shaking.
They later went into a barely-lit bedroom, where she recalled McCartney sitting on the bed and smoking, while she shyly asked if she could sit on the edge.
“He said, ‘What do you want to talk about?’ I said, ‘Well, I can do an interview on you. Does the song ‘Yesterday’ have a special meaning for you?'” Richards recalled. “He said, ‘No interview,’ and did not answer my question. Then we just started chatting about everything, really.”
They spoke about religion, and Richards, who described herself as being so naive at the time, said he was the first man to tell her he did not believe in God. She recalled asking to take off her uncomfortable shoes at one point, to which McCartney told her, “Yes, as far as I’m concerned you can take everything off,” which she laughed off. Afterward, the subject of s*x was brought up, and Richards said she didn’t believe in it, and that caught him off guard (she then clarified she believed in it with the right person).
“That’s when the lightbulb went on,” Richards said, referring to why she was invited up to his hotel room. She decided then to tell McCartney that she was the young woman who grabbed onto his tie and that she wanted a kiss from him. “Initially, I know he didn’t believe me.”
But he got up from the bed, took off his shirt and told her to come over to him, she recalled. That’s when Richards received a three-step kissing lesson from McCartney.
Lesson No. 1: “You put your arms around me,” he said.
Lesson No. 2: He lifted her chin up.
Lesson No. 3: “He kissed me,” she said with a giggle.
So, was he a good kisser? “Yes, he was,” Richards said, not sharing any other details.
