According to some stories, Linda was ready to "conquer" Paul, even before she met him.
Howard Sounes:One of the people Linda knew in New York at this time was Brian Epstein's partner Nat Weiss, who remembers Linda telling him, even before she met Paul, that she had her sights set ultimately on McCartney.
'She said she was going to marry him.'
How true is it that Linda "chased" Paul? This is the opinion of his friend, Danny Fields.
Danny Fields:The courtship of Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman was (almost) as extraordinary as their marriage. It lasted, by one reckoning, almost eighteen months - that's the amount of time between their first meeting and the day Linda moved in with Paul for good; they were married over four months later, which stretches the time to nearly two years between the first "Hello" and the only "I do" that either of them would ever say again. It was like a Jane Austen novel: hero and heroine, both of them fabulous (the degrees of perfection are varied), meet and are instantly in love, although one or both of them may not know it at the very first. Several hundred pages and many, many complications later, the smoke clears away, they become aware of the obvious it's-always-been-you and get married, with presumably nothing now to keep them from living happily ever after. Alas for the true story of the courtship, Linda told friends before she even met Paul that she wanted to marry a Beatle, preferably John but he was married (this was no obstacle for Yoko Ono), so then Paul. She did not mean to be taken totally seriously; she left no doubt that it was wishful thinking, although perhaps within the realm of possibility after all. Now, Linda's friends tended to be rather prominent people, usually journalists or rock stars, and the story has since been told around the world in countless different versions that she set her sights on Paul McCartney very early on, pursued (virtually to the point of stalking) him, and got the prize she was after. I've always thought it odd that Paul McCartney, the world's most wanted bachelor in the late 1960s, seems to have had no choice in the matter. Linda, with all her virtues, was not a sorceress; Paul must have wanted her to be his wife, unless you believe that he is/was a guy whose arm is easily twisted, which plainly isn't the case.
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Linda's announcement of her plan to marry Beatle Paul was an anecdote repeated at - of all places - her memorial ceremony in London, by - of all people - Pete Townshend. He told me,
When Paul asked me to speak at the memorial, I told him that I was gonna tell the 'I'm gonna marry one of the Beatles' story, because I'm the one she said it to originally, and I'm responsible for starting the whole thing. It became a terrible story, completely distorted, and you see it was just a joke, and I wanted people to get it right. Paul was very emphatic about this. He said, 'Pete, if this is your story then it's wrong.' I said to him, 'Well, it's not my story. It's just that we were kidding around, and then she said that, and then you see what happens, that she ended up with you, and it looks like she set out to get you.' And he said, 'It's the other way around. I pursued her.'
