A lot of you gals and guys here know much more about the Beatles than myself. So, what did John mean in that Rolling Stones interview, when he said that for The Beatles to be the greatest they had to be the biggest bunch of bast**ds in music?

How did he mean it? In what sense? What did they do that was bastardly?

He was talking about the pressure they supported and how they had to be unkind to the nearest people to them: Neil, Mal, Brian,... even Sir George (and their wives and girlfriends, of course).
You can see also the Pete Best's special treatment.
He was destroying (trying to) their myth of clean and polite english guys.

John was not in a happy place when he gave that interview. I think the breakup of the band hit them harder than any of them cared to admit.
George was also very dismissive of the band. Said The White Album was the only one he enjoyed making, the band was a prison blah blah.
It was nice to hear him being more positive - he looked at a photo of them together and said he forgot how much they used to laugh with one another.

Quoted from kevin_b

John was not in a happy place when he gave that interview. I think the breakup of the band hit them harder than any of them cared to admit.

Paul actually had a nervous breakdown.

Quoted from MagicAlex

Paul actually had a nervous breakdown.

I know he sunk low (he looks awful circa '70) but I didn't know that. There must have been a real sense of "what the hell do I do now?"

Nobody wanted a break up,... and I'm including the guys.

It's easy to see the point about Pete Best. That should have come to my mind easily. Any way you look at it, they were also highly unkind to him.

As for this stuff about British 'gentleman', like I said with that daft long essay; it has to be put in context. The 'gentleman' is really an upper-class thing. Not a working-class thing, though it must have been useful I suppose after Epstein put them in nice suits.

I don't know who you mean by 'He was destroying (trying to) their myth of clean and polite english guys.' That's what John was doing?

He was trying to destroy everything about the guys (specially Paul), not only in that interview, but specially in that one.
See some lyrics of his John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band LP:
against Paul .- Hold On, I Found Out and maybe Isolation
aginst everything . - God (obviously)

I genrally don't think Paul's music recovered after his near-breakdown. I mean, breakdown is just a word...while the reality is..

Maybe he just meant they were "lucky bastards"

Then again, who knows... we'd have to ask him... and we can't, so let's keep speculating...

Quoted from IndicaWalrus

I genrally don't think Paul's music recovered after his near-breakdown. I mean, breakdown is just a word...while the reality is..

In my opinion that's complete and utter bollocks.

Did he really have a Nervous Breakdown? In my time and book reading, etc...I have not heard or certainly forgotten that.