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Pattie Boyd is one of the greatest muses in the rock and roll world. She inspired 10 songs in total, including three of the genre’s iconic love songs: Eric Clapton’s “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight” and George Harrison‘s “Something.” However, even as she seemed to be riding a wave of admiration, Boyd admits that not all of her experiences were songworthy. She admits to being lost “in a big cloud of fame” during her marriage to The Beatles guitarist.
Pattie Boyd met George Harrison when she was just a teenager
The aspiring model met The Beatles’ lead guitarist when she was a teenager. Boyd was 19 and George 20 when they met on the set of the band’s first motion picture, A Hard Day’s Night. She was cast as one of the schoolgirls on the band’s train ride alongside Harrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and Ringo Starr.
Boyd told Big Issue, “I was 19 or 20, and he was a year older than me. It was wonderful because we grew up together and still had so much to learn. We were like little kids, soaking everything up. We were really, really lucky. And in a way, I suppose it was an education for me.”
The couple tied the knot on Jan. 21, 1966. “It was not the wedding I had dreamed of,” Boyd admitted in her book Wonderful Tonight. “I would have loved to be married in a church, but Brian [Epstein, The Beatles’ manager] didn’t want a big fuss.”
“When he said it should be a quiet register-office wedding, George agreed. I always thought I’d have a big white wedding, as all little girls do, then have children and live happily ever after, not be divorced like my mother,” Boyd wrote.
“He didn’t give me an engagement ring. But we did go to Garrard, the royal jewelers in Regent Street, to choose my wedding ring,” she wrote. “The ring I chose was a wide gold band that looked like a little brick wall made from yellow, pink, and white gold. It was unusual, flexible, and lovely on my finger.”
Pattie Boyd admits to being lost ‘in a big cloud of fame’ during marriage to George Harrison
George Harrison and Pattie Boyd (1969) pic.twitter.com/eGENCVqdhN
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— The Beatles (@BeatlesEarth) May 9, 2022
Boyd grew up in the public eye and learned a lot about herself while married to Harrison and immersing herself in The Beatles’ wild world. However, she admitted that fame clouded her perspective on life.
After being asked who the great love of her life was in an interview, Boyd said it always was Harrison. She never lost her affection for the guitarist, and they remained friends long after their divorce and her marriage to his best friend, Eric Clapton.
“I think he always loved me. Eric loves himself,” she once said, as The Sydney Morning Herald reported. She continued, “In both my marriages, I had neglected myself and got lost in a big cloud of fame; I got lost in their lives.”
However, her love for Harrison remained even after a marriage filled with ‘rejection’
Long separations plagued Boyd’s marriage to Harrison while The Beatles toured. When her husband returned, she often found he would rather spend time alone than with her.
“He was famous, good-looking, had tonnes of money, and flash cars: what a combo. Girls were offering themselves everywhere, and he loved it. To come home to old wifey must have been a bit dull,” she explained to The Sydney Morning Herald.
“He didn’t want us to be together; it was a life of rejection,” Boyd said of her life with Harrison. However, falling hard for Clapton helped ease the pain of divorce. “I was madly passionate about him,” she explained.
But Clapton’s philandering while on the road reminded Boyd of her own parent’s split. Two of Clapton’s extramarital relationships produced children. That’s when Boyd exited the relationship.
