Interview for The Mirror

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Paul McCartney lost a stone in just one week after being rushed to hospital in Japan with a mystery bug.

Speaking for the first time about the drama in May he said: “It was some stomach thing and I was throwing up and didn’t eat for a week, which is one way to lose weight. That’s not recommended. I lost nearly a stone or something.”

Sir Paul, 72, praised doctors in Tokyo who nursed him back to health, saying: “They looked after me amazingly and by then I was on the drugs anyway, so I didn’t care. I felt great.”

The bug forced the star to pull out of a string of Asian concerts. He said he “wasn’t worried about it being life-threatening” but added: “It was enough to lay me up quite quickly whatever it was and then they said ‘Take six weeks off’. My friends said ‘Normally, you’d hate that ’cos you love working’. But I took six weeks and came back stronger than ever.”

Paul has vowed to return to Asia to continue the tour, adding: “I’m going back to Japan next year.”

The former Beatle was speaking in front of a hologram of himself to launch his new song Hope For The Future, released on Monday. He had a full body scan in LA to produce the image but insisted the process was “not scary”.

He also revealed that Bob Geldof did not call him to join the Band Aid 30 line-up to record Do They Know It’s Christmas? despite his featuring on the original recording in 1984.

He joked: “I was away in Brazil so they didn’t ring me. What are you playing at, Bob? I was in the original. I think the new one is OK. It’s great that it’s raising a lot of money for Ebola victims. That’s the main thing.”

Paul, whose new single was written for record-breaking video game Destiny, insisted he would never follow U2 and give away an album on iTunes.

He said: “I don’t think I’d do that. I wouldn’t want people asking to delete it. That slightly backfired, didn’t it? I’m not sure those grand gestures are cool to do. You talk about it – you always have a meeting and you go ‘Oh, shall we just drop it like Beyonce?’ But half an hour later you go: ‘Nah.’”