“‘WAIT… PAUL McCARTNEY ACTUALLY REFUSES PHOTOS WITH FANS?’ — AND HIS REASON HAS PEOPLE COMPLETELY DIVIDED.” 🔴👇 For decades, Paul McCartney has been one of the most recognizable faces on the planet — the kind of legend fans dream of meeting just once in their lives. But according to the former Beatle, if you happen to run into him, there’s one thing you probably shouldn’t expect… a selfie.

If you’re lucky enough to meet Paul McCartney out and about, you may walk away with a “long-winded” story about a monkey… and almost definitely no photograph.

The legendary rocker, 83, opened up on the The Rest Is Entertainment podcast about why he chooses not to take photos with fans.

McCartney said when he meets people, they tend to reach for their phones almost immediately. But turning down the request for a picture and choosing instead to live in the moment helps him retain a sense of normalcy.

“I say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t do pictures.’ And that is like, radical these days,” he said on the podcast, which aired May 14. “I have a long explanation. Oh God, it goes on. I say, ‘No, I don’t like to do that, ‘cause it’s important to me…’ I feel [normalness] is very important to me. The minute I get like, above myself and start thinking I’m something else, I won’t like me. So it’s very important for me to be sort of just me.”

The “Let It Be” singer said that when people ask why he won’t pose for a photo, he dives into what he calls a “long-winded explanation” that has to do with a tourist attraction in Saint-Tropez, France.

“There’s a guy on the beachfront who’s got a monkey, and you pay to have your photo taken with the monkey. So I say, ‘I really do not want to feel like that monkey. And when I take a picture with you, I do feel like him. I’m not me. I’m suddenly something else,’” he said. “It’s a phenomenon of how we live now.”

The “Maybe I’m Amazed” performer added, “And then they go back to their friends and they say, ‘You met Paul McCartney? Did you get a picture?’ ‘No, he just went on about some bloody monkey.’”

McCartney is set to release his new album The Boys of Dungeon Lane on May 29.

“The album title, comes from a lyric in the track ‘Days We Left Behind,’” he wrote on Instagram. “I was thinking just that, about the days I left behind and I do often wonder if I’m just writing about the past but then I think how can you write about anything else?”

The record features his first-ever duet with former Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr, titled “Home to Us.”

SOURCE: PEOPLE