My mom and I were talking yesterday when suddenly, she said something that I have never heard of before:

“Pinabugbog ni Imelda yung Beatles nung andun sila sa Pilipinas,”
[Translate: Imelda (Marcos) had the Beatles beaten up while the group was in the Philippines.]

And boy, was I shocked to say the least!

My brother came in and joined in the conversation. He agreed and said that one of his high school teachers told them about it. The Beatles were beaten up by some of Imelda Marcos’ thugs at the airport, on their way out of the country during their 1966 visit.

Imelda Marcos had the Beatles beaten up at the airport? Why haven’t I ever heard of this before?

So I did a bit of research and ended up with this brilliant page that features a transcript straight from the fab four’s recollection of their traumatic Philippine visit. This was taken from The Beatles Anthology documentaries.

To those who, like me, are quite shocked by this, I recommend that you read the entire webpage to be enlightened. Their ordeal has some eerie resemblance to the last few events in the movie, The Last King of Scotland.

The story in a nutshell [according to their Wikipedia page, at least]:

In July 1966, when The Beatles toured the Philippines, they unintentionally snubbed the nation’s first lady, Imelda Marcos, who had expected the group to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace.[69] When presented with the invitation, Brian Epstein politely declined on behalf of the group, as it had never been the group’s policy to accept such “official” invitations.[70] The group soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to accepting “no” for an answer. After the ‘snub’ was broadcast on Philippine television and radio, all of The Beatles’ police protection disappeared. The group and their entourage had to make their way to Manila airport on their own. At the airport, road manager Mal Evans was beaten and kicked, and the band members were pushed and jostled about by a hostile crowd.[71] Once the group boarded the plane, Epstein and Evans were ordered off, and Evans said, “Tell my wife that I love her.”[72] Epstein was forced to give back all the money that the band had earned while they were there before being allowed back on the plane.[73]

I guess that dictators’ wives are really spoiled rotten like that. The fact that she even had the nerve to maltreat the Beatles like that and give the country a bad name just shows how God-like and superior she thinks she is. To be able to tell everyone that “Hey, I beat up the Beatles! Get it? Get it? *roflmao*” would be a big ego-booster, I guess. She is, after all, the dictator’s wife.

Don’t you just love to hate Imelda?

And oh, look, they’ve made fun of her! XD

To my Filipino friends: Am I living under a rock this entire time? Have you guys heard of this before?