I just heard Pete Best's interview with Howard Stern. And it sounds pretty brutal how he was dismissed from the band and he never heard from them again, didn't recieve any money and they got either Brian or George Martin to handle it... I forget who.
shareI doubt he was actually sorry, as replacing the troublesome Best with the incredibly charming and popular Ringo was one of the best moves the band ever made!
As for any band member ever making a public apology, never heard of one, and of course we'd never hear about a private apology. That may be because Best had been more trouble than he was worth, or because of legal advice. Wealthy celebrities are advised not to admit wrongdoing without clearing the apology with lawyers, as admitting wrongdoing could open them to a lawsuit.
I think that all of the Beatles have, at one time or another, expressed a little bit of regret for the way in which Best's dismissal was handled, but none, as far as I am aware, has ever regretted the act itself. The consensus among the three other Beatles, as well as George Martin and others who were key to the Beatles' success was that Best just wasn't good enough. The others really had something, and he didn't. The Beatles became the literal embodiment of what we now call G.O.A.T. If you're going to play in that company, you have to be the very best. And ironically, Best, despite his name, wasn't. He was a mediocre drummer, just talented enough to help the Beatles become popular in the Liverpool and Hamburg club scene, and he was handsome, so he got some female fans. But he just didn't have the talent to help the Beatles to ascend to their ultimate heights, so he had to be left behind. And it probably didn't help him that he never got that close with John, Paul, or George, and didn't hang out with them much when the band wasn't performing. They might have tried harder to bring him along if he'd really cultivated a friendship with them.
Best's dismissal was inevitable, but I've always felt bad for him. It simply had to hurt to get fired, then watch his former bandmates go on to become THE single biggest act in the history of popular music. To watch them become idols, and rake in piles of money, while he remained a nobody.
Yes the act itself is fine. I'm just talking about how it was handled. I actually just started listening to Cynthia Lennon's audiobook 'John' she said of John in that situations that it was him at his most 'cowardly' and that he couldn't handle confrontation when he was sober.
shareI just want to point out that it wasn't Lennon's decision, and you shouldn't be holding him as exclusively responsible as you seem to be. Paul, George, and Brian Epstein would have had to agree, and it was as much their responsibility as John's.
Of course Cynthia Lennon's autobiography would only talk about John's role in it, that was all she saw, and Lennon was the only one she wanted to slam.