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Pattie Boyd and George Harrison were one of the biggest couples of the glamorous Swinging Sixties until their complicated love lives got in the way of their marriage. The Beatles’ guitarist was a living rock ‘n’ roll legend who led a status-justifying lifestyle, and the model was getting tired of it. In the background was Eric Clapton, the fiery guitar god who became close friends with Harrison in the late ’60s and fell hard for his wife, triggering one of the most scandalous love triangles in music history.
Clapton initially tried to suppress his affection for her, going so far as to date Boyd’s sister to channel his feelings elsewhere. But towards the beginning of the 70s, the guitarist began to make his feelings known, sending her love letters in which he questioned her love for Harrison. Clapton was relentless. Still, Boyd resisted his advances. But when Clapton released the 1973 hit song “Layla,” Boyd was moved. “The song took over, with the realization that I had inspired such passion and such creativity. I couldn’t resist any longer,” she wrote in her 2007 memoir, “Wonderful tonight.”
By this time, Harrison’s infidelity was catching up with Boyd. When her husband beat one of the The messiest celebrity affairs of the 70s becoming involved with Ringo Starr’s wife, Maureen Starkey, in 1974, Boyd decided she’d had enough. The two split up and Boyd got together with Clapton. Despite the year-long pursuit, however, Boyd and Clapton’s relationship was not meant to last either.
George Harrison remained friends with Eric Clapton despite Pattie Boyd’s marriage
Pattie Boyd’s relationship with Eric Clapton began while she was still officially married to George Harrison. This being the rock ‘n’ roll reality of the ’70s, all parties involved, including Ringo Starr and Maureen Starkey, still mingled and frequented each other’s houses. During one of Harrison and Clapton’s guitar sessions, when the latter was already with Boyd, the Beatle star reportedly said, “I guess I’d better break up with her,” according to author Philip Norman in his biography, “George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle” (via Fox News). Clapton replied: “Well, if you do, I suppose that means I have to marry her.”
Divorced in 1977, Boyd married Clapton in 1979, a decade after his infatuation with her began. Clapton and Harrison remained friends, with the latter beginning to call the former her husband-in-law after the wedding. On the other hand, Clapton’s burning passion for Boyd must have burned itself out. Soon enough, Clapton Boyd was unfaithful and even fathered children with two separate women during their marriage in 1985 and 1986.
When he got the other woman pregnant, Clapton told Boyd. At the time, she was in the midst of her struggles with infertility and was undergoing IVF. “It was terrible. It was a stab in the heart, terrible,” she said Starts at 60 in 2018. He wanted to figure things out, but Boyd knew it was the beginning of the end. His infidelities and growing problems with alcohol abuse became too much to bear. Clapton and Boyd divorced in 1989.
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