Art Garfunkel calls Paul Simon a 'jerk' for split at peak of career

Singer Paul Simon performs during the Rainforest Fund's 25th anniversary benefit concert in New York.(Reuters)

Art Garfunkel has spoken frankly about the frustration he felt following the split of Paul Simonand Garfunkel at the top of his career.

"How can you walk away from this lucky place on top of the world, Paul?" he rhetorically asked his band mate during a recent interview. "What's going on with you, you idiot? How could you let that go, jerk?"

It has been 45 years since the duo split after the release of their most famous album, Bridge Over Troubled Water. Since 1971, the pair have come together for a number of shows, however, from the 1970s to the 1990s, and in 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2009. Another reunion scheduled in 2010, but cancelled due to Garfunkel being unwell.

"Art has some problem with his vocal cords," Simon told the Today programme back in 2012, before adding: "I would just as soon not go back and visit the past."

Garfunkel told the Telegraph that Simon's decision to part from the singer was "very strange".

He went on to say: "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. Crazy. What I would have done is take a rest from Paul, because he was getting on my nerves. How can you walk away from this lucky place on top of the world, Paul? What's going on with you, you idiot? How could you let that go, jerk?"

When the Telegraph interviewer suggested that Simon might have a "Napoleon complex", Garfunkel agreed, saying that at school he felt sorry for his friend because of his height, so he in turn offered him friendship as a compensation. "And that compensation gesture has created a monster," he says. "End of interview."

However, Garfunkel did not rule out a future reunion and said that a Simon and Garfunkel show would be "do-able".