Sociopath Author Patric Gagne Says She Swiped Ringo Starr's Glasses. Could This 1977 Photo Be Proof?

This story has been updated.

Among the many eyebrow-raising anecdotes in her provocative memoir sociopathAuthor Patric Gagne claims that as a young child he stole the glasses right off the face of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr – and, she writes, PEOPLE he has the photo to prove it.

Gagne freely admits sociopath that she is a liar and has admitted in interviews that she is a “flawed messenger”.

“I know my stories are true,” she said Los Angeles Times in April, “but I also know that not everyone will believe them.”

Patric Gagne and her 2024 book ‘Sociopath: A Memoir’.

Patric Gagne/Instagram

PEOPLE’s most anticipated summer books: the best beach reads, thrillers, fiction, YA and more

Well, PEOPLE can confirm that at least part of Gagne’s story about Ringo is true: A profile of the musician that ran in the magazine’s Jan. 17, 1977 issue did indeed include an adorable photo of a toddler stealing the Beatle’s glasses.

In her book, Gagne writes that from early childhood she did not experience “common social emotions like shame and empathy” like other children. “Mostly I didn’t feel anything. And I didn’t like how that ‘nothing’ felt. So I did things to replace the nothingness with… something.”

According to Gagne, that “something” occasionally took the form of theft.

“I started stealing before I could speak,” she writes. “At least I think I am. I don’t remember the first time I took something, except that by the time I was six or seven I had a whole box in my closet full of things I stole.”

Among those stolen items, she writes, were Ringo’s glasses – which she claims she still has today.

“Somewhere in the archives people magazine there’s a photo of Ringo Starr holding me when I was little,” she explains. “We’re standing in his backyard — not far from my hometown in Los Angeles, where my father was an executive in the music business — and I’m literally stealing his glasses off his face.”

Ringo Starr performs with his All Starr Band in 2024.

SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

“Of course, I wasn’t the first kid to play with an adult’s glasses,” Gagne continues. “But based on the glasses sitting on my bookshelf right now, I’m pretty sure I was the only one who picked up a pair from the Beatle.”

The 1977 profile does not mention Gagne or her music business executive father by name. And the caption for the photo — taken by the late Ken Regan, who died in 2012 — merely identifies the child in Starr’s arms as “a friend’s baby.” PEOPLE reached out to Reagan’s daughter, Suzanne, who confirmed her father’s records show the photo was taken in November 1976 outside Starr’s California home, but does not include the child’s or their parents’ names.

PEOPLE also reached out to Gagne on July 3, 2024, after her husband, David Gagne, said the author’s mother provided a second photo of Starr and Patric taken the same day it was published in the magazine (below ).

Ringo Starr with a young Patrick Gagne in 1976.

Courtesy of Patric Gagne

Gagne sent PEOPLE a photo she says her mother may have taken herself and has been sitting in the family home for more than 40 years.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education