Ringo Starr Walks Off TV Show

Ringo Starr is known for being the amiable Beatle, but the rock star showed his tough side Tuesday when he walked off the set of "Live With Regis and Kelly" rather than cut short one of his songs.

Starr, who is promoting his new album, "Liverpool 8," planned to perform the title song with fellow rocker Dave Stewart. However, due to miscommunication between his publicist, Elizabeth Freund, and the musical director, Starr didn't realize the performance had to be 2 1/2 minutes or less, Freund told The Associated Press.

When told Tuesday morning that the performance had to be shortened, Freund said Starr tried to cut about a minute of the song's 4 minute, 15 second length, down to 3 minutes and 30 seconds. However, according to Freund, producer Michael Gellman said it had to be less than 3 minutes.

"We offered to cut back our chat time and asked them to fade or go to commercial. They were not willing to do that and Ringo was not willing to cut it further, so without a compromise we were not able to stay," Freund said in a statement to The Associated Press. "Ringo left saying, `God bless and goodbye. We still love Regis.'"

Some of Liverpool's most prominent public figures, not to mention thousands of members of the public, reacted with fury after Starr told Jonathan Ross on his BBC 1 chat show that there was nothing he missed about the city. Rubbing salt into the wound, the Toxteth-born drummer went on to admit he had exaggerated his desire to move back there merely to please the Liverpudlian public.