Erika Hubers
Erika Hubers was a pretty young girl with long, straight hair whose father owned a club on the Grosse Freiheit in Hamburg, Germany. Erika herself got a job as a waitress in one of the clubs in that area and it was there that she came across a young rough and ready group from Liverpool called The Beatles who were employed as entertainment there.
Erika took a liking to one of their guitarists, Paul McCartney, and began dating him during most of the time he played the city. During this time Erika found herself to be pregnant and the child - a daughter named Bettina - was born the day Paul was due to return to Liverpool.
When The Beatles became rich and famous, Erika visited a lawyer in Hamburg claiming that Paul knew of her pregnancy, and encouraged her to have an abortion. She also claimed the child was his, and her lawyer drew up legal documents and forwarded them to the Beatles' solicitor in London. Paul denied all responsibility and the documents were returned unanswered, Derek Jacobs (the Beatles solicitor) contending that if the mother continued to press charges, that they could be dealt with by a German tribunal. Erika's family threatened to file suit in England and so a settlement was reached and she stopped making her claims.
By 1981, the daughter in question (who now had her own successful music career as a singer) was pursuing the case herself, claiming that her mother had been paid £13,000 in 1966 by The Beatles management to keep quiet about who her father was. Paul still denied paternity and in 1983 he underwent two separate blood tests which came back negative, finally proving he was not her father to a German judge overseeing the case.
SOURCES: Various newspaper articles about Erika and Bettina's claims and various Beatles and Paul Biographies.
**** **** **** **** **** **** ****
