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Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney is still in "denial" about his Beatles bandmate John Lennon's death.

The 40-year-old star was shot and killed outside his New York City apartment by Mark David Chapman in December 1980, and all these years later, Paul still can't bring himself to dwell too much on the tragic incident.

He shared: "I can't really think about it. It kind of implodes. What can you think about that besides anger, sorrow?" he mused during an interview with the New York Times newspaper. "Like any bereavement, the only way out is to remember how good it was with John.

"Because I can't get over the senseless act. I can't think about it. I'm sure it's some form of denial. But denial is the only way that I can deal with it."

And when he walks past the funeral parlor where John's body was taken, Paul always says "All right, John. Hi, John."

Elsewhere in the interview, Paul, 78, admitted his meteoric rise from a "poor working-class kid from Liverpool" to the top of the music industry has seen him become a "complex person."

"I've had huge success, and people often try to do what I want, so you get a false feeling of omnipotence," he said. "All that together makes a complex person. We're all complex. Well, maybe I'm more complex than other people because of coming from poverty."