George Harrison's Wives and the Pattie-Boyd-Eric-Clapton Love Triangle That Sent Beatles

George Harrison wrote "Something," arguably one of the greatest love songs in music history, about his first wife, Pattie Boyd, but their marriage didn't stand the same test of time as his lyrics and melody: The pair divorced after Boyd left Harrison, a Beatle, for Eric Clapton, a guitar god.  And that wasn't even the only love triangle to plague the couple's marriage. According to Boyd, Harrison cheated on her with his bandmate Ringo Starr's then-wife Maureen Starkey (no, really!). That's a lot of drama for a man known as the "quiet Beatle."

Keep reading to learn more about Harrisons wives, including who he was married to at the time of his death in 2001.  Harrison was married two times: first to Pattie Boyd, from 1966 to 1974, then to Olivia Harrison, from 1978 until the time of his death in 2001. How did George Harrison and Pattie Boyd meet?

Boyd was 19 and just starting her modeling career when she got a small part as a school-aged Beatles fan in the 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night. Harrison was immediately smitten with the young woman and asked her to dinner, but she politely declined because she was seeing someone else at the time. A week later, newly single and back on set for a photo shoot, she changed her answer — and the course of her life forever.

That summer, Harrison bought a quiet country home to retreat from the chaos of Beatlemania, and Boyd soon joined him there. Less than two years after their first meeting, on Jan. 21, 1966, they were married.  Why did Pattie Boyd leave George Harrison?  The short answer is that Boyd left Harrison for their friend and fellow rocker Eric Clapton, kicking off one of the most famous love triangles in music history. But, really, their marriage had been unraveling for years.

On leaving Harrison, Boyd told The Telegraph in 2022, “It was an extremely difficult decision of mine to make.”  “I felt that I had to leave George because things were getting really out of hand. George was just being a different George. We had gone in different directions, basically. But we still loved each other…”

Addressing his well-documented infidelity, which included an affair with Ringo Starr’s then-wife Maureen, Boyd added, “It’s just that I think he wanted to spread his wings and take advantage of being the handsome, famous, rich guy that he was, and see how the girls feel about him. A hot-blooded boy – why not, I suppose.”

Did Pattie Boyd leave George Harrison for Eric Clapton?  Technically, yes, but her marriage to Harrison had been suffering for years due in part to his own infidelity. Still, her decision to leave Harrison for Clapton — who had been pining for her for more than a decade despite being friends with the Beatle (she was even the inspiration for his 1970 hit “Layla”) — was a massive story in 1974 and remains a major part of the band's lore to this day.

Harrison, the most reclusive of the Beatles, wasn’t big on talking to the press about his private affairs (none of the band members were, really). But he did reportedly tell Men Only magazine in 1978 that, “For a long time I could not talk about Pattie, after she left. But I now admit that I loved her very much and wish her the best.”

Source: Patti Greco/au.lifestyle.yahoo.com

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