Having directed so many stinging comments at the Royal Family in his best-selling memoir Spare, it was easy to overlook a choice comment Prince Harry made about America’s own king: Elvis Presley.
Describing a visit to Graceland, Elvis’ home in Memphis, Harry wrote that it was “dark, claustrophobic.” I walked around saying, “The King lived here, you say? Actually?”‘
He recalled being “in a small room with noisy furniture and a shag carpet and thinking, ‘The King’s interior designer must have been taking acid.’
Unsurprisingly, Elvis fans did not welcome his attempt at humor, least of all singer-songwriter Don McLean, who scathingly commented on greenhouse, a show horse that never did anything.
As Don says now: “He doesn’t understand that Elvis is like the king of the poor.” He came out of nowhere and the recordings of him are among the best ever made.
American singer-songwriter Don McLean (pictured), 78, famous for his 1971 hit American Pie, has just released the album American Boys.
“His family was as poor as they could be and Harry criticized Elvis’ house as if he were comparing it to Buckingham Palace, and that doesn’t make sense. This is a guy who has been raised to be polite, but you don’t criticize United States when you live here as our guest.
Don adds of the prince, who recently listed the United States as his primary residence: “He just doesn’t understand America.”
As the man who wrote American Pie, considered by many to be the quintessential song about America and its spiritual decline, Don McLean is in a pretty good position to comment.
The song’s meaning has been closely studied for half a century, but for Don, its success (which generates around £400,000 in royalties each year) has meant, simply, that he “never has to work again”.
However, the work it does. His latest album, American Boys, has just come out. He has also been invited to speak at Oxford University and will headline The Long Road country music festival at Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, in August.
At 78 years old, he has decided not to do any more long tours. But I’ll go see two or three shows. I love the British public,” says Don, whose father was of Scottish origin, speaking from his home in Palm Desert, California.
Fans will be treated to songs from the new album, such as the brutally comedic The Meanest Girl, in which he insists he is not about his ex-wife Patrisha Shnier, whom he bitterly divorced eight years ago, and The Ballad Of George Floyd, the black. 46-year-old man whose death at the hands of a white police officer four years ago helped fuel the Black Lives Matter movement.
While the aftermath of Floyd’s death was divisive, the song references his final moments when he called his mother. “When I was little, I had very bad asthma attacks and almost died a few times,” says Don.
‘My mother gave me a baseball bat and told me to hit it on the ground if I couldn’t breathe and she would come. I remembered him and somehow my heart went out to him.
The new album will surely increase his net worth, which has been estimated at £40 million, but that, according to Don, is conservative.
Don McLean performing at the BBC TV Center on 1 January 1973. His hit American Pie generates £400,000 in royalties each year.
‘That figure is very low. In reality, it is more than double. I own my records, books, trademarks, everything. And I’m a bond investor, so I could use the money I’m worth and make probably a billion dollars; but the way I feel, I’ve been so lucky to earn the money I’ve earned that I’m very happy where I am.’
Another reason for his happiness is his girlfriend Paris Dunn, a model and Instagram star with considerable pneumatic charm whom he hired in 2016 to manage his social networks and who has been with him since then.
“She is everything to me,” says Don, who wrote the song Mexicali Gal for her on her new album. ‘We have a great time together and everyone on both sides of my family absolutely adores her. There was so much stress when my previous marriage didn’t work out, I don’t think I would have lived as long if it hadn’t been for her.’
Did he ever fear that Paris, who at 30 is 48 years younger than him, would come after him for his money? “No,” he says unequivocally. ‘The person who is after my money is the person I divorced. She earned more than $11 million.
It’s fair to say that the vicious consequences of Don’s divorce from Patrisha, his second wife, have all the makings of a bad country and western song.
Married for 29 years, their relationship came to an abrupt end in 2016 after Don was arrested at his Maine home when Patrisha claimed he “had terrified me for four hours until the 911 call that I think could have saved my life.” life”.
He later pleaded guilty to domestic violence and accepted the charges, he later insisted, “because he was 70 years old.” I couldn’t stand it. I thought there was going to be nonsense and stories and everything else, so I thought, “Okay. Within a year all bad charges will be dismissed.” As part of the resulting deal, he avoided jail time.
Since then, the bad blood between the former spouses has continued, but Don says, “I know there is a negative mark on my biography that will follow me forever, but I have lived an exemplary life.” I have never hurt anyone and not a single person came out and said, “Don McLean is abusive.”
Far from being abused by me, my family got what they wanted, when they wanted.
“When all that shit was happening eight years ago, that was the moment when people came together, but nobody said anything.”
However, he amicably handed Patrisha the $11 million (£8.8 million) divorce settlement. “We spent 30 years together, so I never minded paying him back,” she says.
The couple had two children, Wyatt, now 31, and Jackie, 34, the latter of whom dropped another bombshell three years ago when, in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, she claimed she had suffered emotional and mental abuse by part of his father. although there is no physical abuse.
This led to Don disinheriting his daughter to the tune of almost £2.5 million (and Jackie subsequently insisted that she had disinherited herself). “It was very difficult to achieve,” she admits. “I feel really bad for my daughter because other people’s fingerprints are on some of the things she’s done.”
Jackie is a singer-songwriter like her father. “She’s very talented and very intelligent and there’s really nothing she can’t do,” she says. “But I don’t think she realizes how much work it takes to actually get somewhere.”
He says his claims couldn’t be further from the truth. ‘Far from suffering abuse, my family got what they wanted, when they wanted. For 30 years I felt like I was protecting and providing for them, and I was very proud of my work because it gave them a real existence.’
The family lived in a house in Maine, on the east coast of the United States. ‘I decorated it, I designed it, I did everything. “My children had big rooms with their own bathroom and they could do whatever they wanted in their room,” he says, adding that he liked the rest of his house to stay that way.
‘My daughter said in her interview that it was like living in a museum, and she was right about that. ‘She didn’t want the whole house to be full of rubbish!’
It certainly suggests a man who likes a degree of control, a word that comes up frequently when Don describes having to take charge of his own life from a very young age.
He grew up in New Rochelle, New York, to parents Donald and Elizabeth. She was 15 years old when her father died suddenly. “It was a huge turning point in my life,” she says.
‘He and I were alone in the house and after his heart attack he looked at me and smiled because he was proud that I had taken control and called the ambulance.
Don pictured with his girlfriend Paris Dunn, 30, a model and Instagram star. The couple has been together since 2016.
‘He died a few hours later, and from that moment on I was in control. My mother was completely devastated by the entire experience. She would say, “I have to sell the house,” and I would say, “No, we’re not going to do that.”
They rented their house for seven years and when Don was in his twenties and landed a record deal, he was able to move his mother and older sister, Betty Anne, back into the family home.
“When the main breadwinner dies, sometimes the family goes down,” Don says. “Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
But Don’s success did not come immediately. His debut album, Tapestry, which included the hit And I Love You So (played at Harry and Meghan’s wedding reception), was rejected 72 times before its release in 1970.
However, when his second album, American Pie, was released the following year, his stardom was assured.
However, working non-stop between 1968 and 1974 led to bankruptcy. “They pushed me and pushed me and I just crashed,” he says. His friend, producer Joel Dorn, helped him slow down.
And from that moment on I took control of the rhythm. I can say that I’ve lived my life exactly the way I wanted to and I only make the records I want to make.’
Of his own mortality, Don admits, “I’m 78 and I’m leaving; I’m in that zone.” Therefore, he ensures that the considerable wealth he has accumulated over the years goes to his Don McLean Foundation.
“We’ll give money to soup kitchens and shelters, and we really want to help with the homeless problem.”
He also plans to make the 175 acres of his property in Maine the center of the foundation. “It will be decorated exactly the way I want it,” she says, “and people will be able to look inside and see how I lived for 30 years.”
If Prince Harry decides to pay a visit, hopefully this time he’ll remember to bring his manners.
- Don McLean’s latest album, American Boys, is out now. For more information, visit donmclean.com.