Garfunkel slams Simon for quitting their band shortly after releasing their biggest record to date, asking him, 'What's going on with you, you idiot? How could you let that go, jerk?'
- May 26, 2015
AceShowbiz - Art Garfunkel is still mad at Paul Simon for quitting Simon & Garfunkel back in early '70s. In a new interview with The Telegraph, the 73-year-old musician blasted his former bandmate, whom he claimed had become a "monster," as he discussed the split that happened shortly after the release of their biggest record to date, "Bridge Over Troubled Water".
"It was very strange," Garfunkel said of the break-up. "Nothing I would have done. I want to open up about this. I don't want to say any anti-Paul Simon things, but it seems very perverse to not enjoy the glory and walk away from it instead. Crazy. What I would have done is take a rest from Paul, because he was getting on my nerves. The jokes had run dry."
Garfunkel went on to ask one of his unanswered questions to Simon, "How can you walk away from this lucky place on top of the world, Paul? What's going on with you, you idiot? How could you let that go, jerk?"
Following Simon & Garfunkel's disbandment, Simon went on to become a solo performer and found bigger success than Garfunkel who taught math after he got married and moved to Connecticut. "There was a nearby preparatory school and so I taught math there. It was a weird stage of my life, to leave Simon & Garfunkel at the height of our success and become a math teacher. I would talk them through a math problem and ask if anyone had any questions and they would say: 'What were The Beatles like?' " he said.
Garfunkel then revealed that he met The Beatles' George Harrison at a party after parting ways with Simon. He said that Harrison compared Simon to his own bandmate Paul McCartney. " 'My Paul is to me what your Paul is to you.' He meant that psychologically they had the same effect on us. The Pauls sidelined us," Garfunkel recalled. "I think George felt suppressed by Paul and I think that's what he saw with me and my Paul."
Garfunkel concluded the chat with The Telegraph by agreeing with the interviewer that Simon might have a Napoleon complex. He explained that he befriended Simon when they were in high school because of the latter's height. He offered Simon love and friendship as compensation, but according to Garfunkel, "that compensation gesture has created a monster."
