EXCLUSIVE'Prince Harry should shut his mouth... he just doesn't get America': American Pie singer Don McLean on his $11 million 離婚, his young model girlfriend - and why the 'show horse' prince should learn some manners

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Having 目的（とする）d so many stinging barbs at the 王室の Family in his bestselling memoir Spare, it was 平易な to overlook one choice comment Prince Harry?made about America’s very own king ? Elvis Presley.?

述べるing a visit to Graceland ? Elvis’s home in Memphis ? Harry wrote that it was, ‘Dark, claustrophobic. I walked around 説, “The King lived here, you say? Really?”’?

He 解任するd that he stood ‘in one?tiny room with loud furniture and shag carpet and thought, “The King’s 内部の designer must have been on 酸性の.”’

Unsurprisingly, Elvis fans didn’t take kindly to his 試みる／企てる at humour, not least singer-songwriter Don McLean, who tartly 発言／述べるd on X, ‘“Prince” Harry should shut his mouth about Graceland and Elvis. He is a hot house orchid, a show horse who never did a thing.’?

As Don says now, ‘He doesn’t understand that Elvis is like the poor man’s king. He （機の）カム from nowhere and his recordings are の中で the greatest ever made.

US singer-songwriter Don McLean (pictured), 78, who is most famous for his 1971 攻撃する，衝突する American Pie, has just 解放（する）d the album American Boys

‘His family were as poor as they could be and Harry criticised Elvis’s home as if he’s comparing it to Buckingham Palace, and that 行方不明になるs the point 完全に. Here’s a fellow who has been brought up to be mannerly, but you don’t criticise America when you’re living here as our guest.’?

Don 追加するs of the prince, who recently 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる）d the US as his 最初の／主要な 住居, ‘He just doesn’t get America.’

As the man who wrote American Pie ? considered by many to be the quintessential song about the US and its spiritual 拒絶する／低下する ? Don McLean is in a pretty good position to comment.?

The song’s meaning has been pored over for half a century, but for Don, its success (it brings in around £400,000 in 王族s every year) has meant, やめる 簡単に, that he’ll ‘never have to work again’.

Yet work he does. His 最新の album, American Boys, has just been 解放（する）d. He’s also been 招待するd to speak at Oxford University, and will be headlining The Long Road country music festival at Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, in August.?

At 78, he’s decided not to do any more 非常に長い 小旅行するs. ‘But I’ll go over for two or three shows. I love the British audience,’ says Don, whose father had Scottish origins, speaking from his home in Palm 砂漠, California.

Fans will be 扱う／治療するd to songs from the new album such as the 残酷に comic The Meanest Girl, which he 主張するs is not about his ex-wife Patrisha Shnier from whom he was 離婚d acrimoniously eight years ago, and The Ballad Of George Floyd ? the 黒人／ボイコット 46-year-old whose death at the 手渡すs of a white police officer four years ago helped 推進する the 黒人／ボイコット Lives 事柄 movement.

While the repercussions of Floyd’s death were 意見の不一致を生じる, the song 言及／関連s his final moments when he called out for his mother. ‘When I was little, I had really bad 喘息 attacks and nearly died a few times,’ says Don.?

‘My mother?gave me a baseball bat and said to 続けざまに猛撃する it on the 床に打ち倒す if I couldn’t breathe and she would come. I remembered that and somehow my heart went out to him.’

The new album is sure to 追加する to his 逮捕する 価値（がある）, which has been 概算の at £40 million ? but that, によれば Don, is 保守的な.?

Don McLean 成し遂げるing at the BBC TV Centre on 1 January 1973. His 攻撃する，衝突する American Pie brings in £400,000 in 王族s every year

‘That 人物／姿／数字 is very low. It’s 現実に more than 二塁打 that. I own my 記録，記録的な／記録するs, 調書をとる／予約するs, trademarks, everything. And I’m a 社債 投資家 so I could use the money I’m 価値（がある） and make probably a billion dollars; but the way I feel, I’ve been so lucky to make the money I’ve made that I’m really happy where I am.’

One of the other 推論する／理由s for his happiness is his girlfriend Paris Dunn, a model and Instagram 星／主役にする of かなりの pneumatic charms whom he 雇うd in 2016 to manage his social マスコミ and who has been with him ever since.?

‘She’s everything to me,’ says Don, who wrote the 跡をつける Mexicali Gal on his new album for her. ‘We have a 爆破 together and everybody on both 味方するs of my family 絶対 adores her. There had been so much 強調する／ストレス when my previous marriage was not working, I don’t think I’d have lived this long if it hadn’t been for her.’

Did he ever 恐れる that Paris, who at 30 is 48 years his junior, may have been after him for his money? ‘No,’ he says, unequivocally. ‘The person who’s after my money is the person I 離婚d. She got more than $11 million of it.’

It’s fair to say that the vicious fallout from Don’s 離婚 from Patrisha, his second wife, has all the hallmarks of a bad Country & Western song.?

Married for 29 years, their?関係 （機の）カム to an abrupt end in 2016 after Don was 逮捕（する）d at their Maine home when Patrisha （人命などを）奪う，主張するd he had ‘terrorised me for four hours until the 911 call that I think might have saved my life’.

He subsequently pleaded 有罪の to 国内の 暴力／激しさ and 受託するd the 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金s, he later ins isted, ‘because I was 70 years old. I couldn’t stand it. I thought there was going to be bulls*** and stories and everything else, so I thought, “罰金. In a year’s time all the bad 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金s will be thrown out.”’ As part of the resulting 嘆願 取引, he 避けるd 刑務所，拘置所.

Since then the rancour between the former spouses has continued, but Don says, ‘I know there’s this 消極的な 示す on my biography that will follow me forever, but I have lived an 模範的な life. I have never 傷つける anyone and not one 選び出す／独身 person ever （機の）カム out and said, “Don McLean is abusive.”?

'When all that s*** was going 負かす／撃墜する eight years ago, that was the time for people to pile on, but nobody said anything.’?

He 手渡すd Patrisha the $11 million (£8.8m) 離婚 解決／入植地 友好的に, though. ‘We spent 30 years together, so I didn’t ever mind 支払う／賃金ing her,’ he says.

The couple had two children ? Wyatt, now 31, and Jackie, 34 ? the latter of whom 抑えるのをやめるd a その上の bombshell three years ago when, in an interview with Rolling 石／投石する magazine, she （人命などを）奪う，主張するd she had experienced emotional and mental 乱用 from her father, though no physical 乱用.?

It led to Don disinheriting his daughter to the tune of almost ?£2.5 million (with Jackie subsequently 主張するing she had disinherited herself). ‘That was very hard to do,’ he 収容する／認めるs. ‘I feel very bad for my daughter because the 指紋s of other people are all over some of the things she’s done.’

Jackie is a sin?ger-songwriter like her father. ‘She’s very talented and very smart and there’s nothing, really, that she can’t do,’ he says. ‘But I don’t think she rea lises how much work is 伴う／関わるd to really get somewhere.’?

He says her （人命などを）奪う，主張するs couldn’t be その上の from the truth. ‘Far from 存在 乱用d, my family got whatever they 手配中の，お尋ね者, when they 手配中の，お尋ね者. For 30 years I felt I was 保護するing and 供給するing for them, and I was very proud of my work in that it 供給するd them with a 王室の 存在.’

The family lived in a house in Maine on the US east coast. ‘I decorated it, designed it, did everything. My children had big rooms with their own bathroom and could do anything they 手配中の，お尋ね者 in their room,’ he says, 追加するing that he liked having the 残りの人，物 of his home kept just so.?

‘My daughter said in her interview it was like living in a museum, and she was 権利 about that. I did not want crap all over the 残り／休憩（する） of the house!’

Certainly, it 示唆するs a man who likes a degree of 支配（する）／統制する ? a word that 刈るs up frequently as Don 述べるs having to take the reins of his own life from a very 早期に age.?

Growing up in New Rochelle in New York 明言する／公表する to parents Donald and Elizabeth, he was 15 when his father died suddenly. ‘It was a big watershed moment in my life,’ he says.?

‘He and I were alone in the house and after his heart attack he looked at me and smiled because he was proud I had taken 支配（する）／統制する and called the 救急車.

Don pictured with his girlfriend?Paris Dunn, 30, a model and Instagram 星／主役にする. The pair have been together since 2016

‘He died a few hours later, and from that moment on I was in 支配（する）／統制する. My mother was 完全に 粉々にするd by the whole experience. She would say, “I have to sell the house,” and I’d say, “No, we’re not going to.”’?

They rented out? their house for seven years and by the time Don was in his twenties and had 安全な・保証するd a 記録，記録的な／記録する 取引，協定, he was able to move his mother and his older sister, Betty Anne, 支援する into the family home.?

‘When the 最初の／主要な breadwinner dies, the 世帯 いつかs goes 負かす／撃墜する,’ says Don. ‘井戸／弁護士席, I wasn’t going to let that happen.’

But success for Don didn’t come すぐに. His debut album, ?Tapestry, which 含むd the 攻撃する，衝突する And I Love You So (which was played at Harry and Meghan’s wedding 歓迎会), was 拒絶するd 72 times before its 解放（する） in 1970.?

Yet by the time his ?second album, American Pie, was 解放（する）d the に引き続いて year, his stardom was 保証するd.

Working 非，不，無-stop between 1968 and 1974, however, led to a 決裂／故障. ‘I was 存在 押し進めるd and 押し進めるd and I just 衝突，墜落d,’ he says. His friend, 生産者 Joel Dorn, helped him slow 負かす／撃墜する.?

‘And I took 支配（する）／統制する of the pace from that point on. I can say that I’ve lived my life 正確に／まさに the way I’ve 手配中の，お尋ね者 to and I only make the 記録，記録的な／記録するs I want to make.’

Of his own mortality, Don 譲歩するs, ‘I’m 78 and I’m going away ? I’m in that zone.’ He is the refore 確実にするing that the かなりの wealth he has 蓄積するd over the years will 結局 go に向かって his Don McLean 創立／基礎.?

‘We will give money away to soup kitchens and 避難所s, and we really want to help out with the homeless problem.’?

He also has 計画（する）s to make the 175 acres of his 所有物／資産／財産 in Maine the centre of the 創立／基礎. ‘It will be decorated 正確に／まさに the way I want,’ he says, ‘and people will be able to look inside and see how I lived for 30 years.’

Should Prince Harry decide to 支払う／賃金 a visit, hopefully this time he’ll remember to bring his manners.

• Don McLean’s 最新の album, American Boys, is on sale now. For more （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状）, visit donmclean.com.