"I interrupted the passage of this chalice to the great one!" The night that The Police's Stewart Copeland "mortally embarrassed" himself in front of a Beatles legend

Stewart Copeland, former drummer with The Police, has revealed his most cringe-worthy run-in with a celebrity, and it involves one of the most famous and iconic musicians on the planet.

Copeland shares his embarrassing anecdote in a new interview with The Guardian, revealing "I once Bogarted a Beatle."

"It was at the after party for the Foo Fighters concert at Wembley Stadium," he explains, most likely referring to the American band's two-night stand at England's national stadium in June 2008. "Somebody says, 'Oh, I smell marijuana', and so I wander over in that general direction just as somebody's handing a joint. So I said, OK, sure – just to be polite – I took the joint, and I looked over and I realised that the intended recipient of the joint was none other than Paul McCartney. And I had just interrupted the passage of this chalice to the great one! I had interloped in this moment.

"I went to bed that night not quite sure whether I was mortally embarrassed or if that was kind of a cool brag," Copeland added.

In the same interview. Copeland identifies McCartney as the nicest rock star he knows.

"He sets the standard," the drummer says. "He not only remembers your name and talks to you like a regular guy, but he remembers your wife's name – and, you know, he absolutely is a regular guy in spite of being a Beatle."

Copeland is expected to go to court next year in the UK, as he and his former Police bandmate Andy Summers, are suing their former bandmate Sting, claiming that they are owed royalties for the band's 1983 hit Every Breath You Take.

In their legal case, filed in the High Court in London in August, Summers and Copeland claim they were never properly credited as songwriters on the song, and therefore have never received royalties for their contributions.

Sting and his publishing company, Magnetic Publishing, are listed as defendants in the case.

Released in 1983 as the first single from the band's fifth and final album Synchronicity, Every Breath You Take topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for eight weeks, and went on to became the best-selling single of 1983, the fifth-best-selling single of the decade, and the most played song in radio history in America.

The song is credited solely to The Police's former vocalist/bassist, and according to a 2010 interview with the musician's publisher, it generates between a quarter and a third of Sting's publishing income.