Ex-Beatles drummer Ringo Starr raised more than a few graying eyebrows when he announced recently via a video on his website that any fan mail he received after Oct. 20 would simply be tossed.

“I’m warning you with peace and love; I have so much to do. So no more fan mail. Thank you, thank you. And no objects to be signed. Nothing. Anyway, peace and love, peace and love.”

That’s great stuff in so many ways. Good to know, for instance, that you can use “Peace and love; peace and love” to mean “Now just get away, ya bother me.”

I appreciate this as a moment of pure candor from a grizzled celebrity.

But I confess, I now wonder whether, during his 46 years as a Beatle, Ringo really has been answering his fan mail, as was depicted in an episode of “The Simpsons” where Ringo dutifully answered every single fan letter personally, even if it took decades.

Was “the funny Beatle” really “the obsessive/compulsive” Beatle?

And just what exactly prompted Ringo to fling down his Sharpie and declare “Never again! Peace and love; peace and love”?

Whatever the reason, he’s had a rare celebrity outbreak of candor that won’t put a penny in his pocket. What he’s done is refuse to pretend that fan mail — fawning letters from utter strangers — really means anything to him. And why should it?

Some of his fans will no doubt be peeved at his impertinence, but why should he care now? After all, those who like his music can still enjoy it. It’s not like his fans can take away his success or his long marriage to a former Bond girl.

Maybe it was the approaching 28th anniversary of John Lennon’s Dec. 8, 1980, murder by a disturbed fan, and the beheading of a Ringo-shaped topiary in his native Liverpool by fans irked because he dared to admit that he didn’t really miss his old home town.

The idiocy of that petty violence against a shrubbery might have made Ringo realize that he’s already paid enough dues to the silly cult of celebrity. It’s brave of him to acknowledge the difference between reality and the virtual reality of fan worship. How refreshing.

Theresa Novak is the city editor at the Corvallis Gazette-Times.