Paul McCartney has spoken out about his unintentionally racist past.

The former Beatle said when he was younger, growing up in Liverpool, he used certain words without knowing they were actual offensive to some.

"When I was a kid, you were racist without knowing it," McCartney said in a recent interview with the Mail Online.

He went on to say, "Along the way we suddenly realised how it would make the people you were talking about feel.

I don't think until then we'd ever even thought about other people.

It was like a joke between ourselves. But then someone points out, 'Well, that's denigrating.'"