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Art Garfunkel Slams “Idiot” Paul Simon for Quitting Simon & Garfunkel

Simon and Garfunkel perform in 2009
Art Garfunkel slammed Paul Simon in a new interview, describing his former music partner as a "jerk" and an "idiot" for quitting Simon & Garfunkel more than four decades ago.

Still mad. Art Garfunkel told The Telegraph this past weekend in a new interview that he was still upset with his former musical partner, Paul Simon, for quitting Simon & Garfunkel more than four decades ago.

Garfunkel, 73, went into detail about how the folk rock duo fell apart at the height of their fame after they released Bridge Over Troubled Water in 1970.

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“It was very strange. Nothing I would have done,” Garfunkel told the paper of Simon, 73. “I want to open up about this. I don’t want to say any anti-Paul Simon things, but it seems very perverse to not enjoy the glory and walk away from it instead. Crazy. What I would have done is take a rest from Paul, because he was getting on my nerves. The jokes had run dry.”

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Garfunkel said he didn’t dispute it at the time because he wanted to get himself back together. “But a rest of a year was all I needed,” he mused. “I said: ‘I’m not married yet. I want to jump on a BMW motorbike and tour round Europe chasing ladies.'”

simon and garfunkel in 1968
Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon in 1968

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During the interview, the Queens, N.Y. native posed one of his lifelong unanswered questions. “‘How can you walk away from this lucky place on top of the world, Paul?'” Garfunkel demanded. “‘What’s going on with you, you idiot? How could you let that go, jerk?'”

After their breakup in 1970, the two old pals reunited occasionally onstage. “Will I do another tour with Paul? Well, that’s quite do-able,” Garfunkel noted in his latest interview. “When we get together, with his guitar, it’s a delight to both of our ears. A little bubble comes over us and it seems effortless. We blend. So, as far as this half is concerned, I would say, ‘Why not, while we’re still alive?’ But I’ve been in that same place for decades. This is where I was in 1971.”

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