Pattie Boyd: All About the Woman at the Center of the Ultimate ’60s Rock Star Love Triangle
The model was married to both George Harrison and Eric Clapton and inspired their most famous songs
Pattie Boyd is one of the very few people in the world who can say she’s been married to not one but two rock icons. The model and photographer, who was famously married to George Harrison, only to leave him for Eric Clapton after a decade, was one of the ultimate musical muses.
Boyd’s name is synonymous with the swinging ’60s, and the many songs she inspired are classics of the era. Now 81, Boyd is still going strong, and her photography exhibitions featuring indelible images of her musical peers have earned acclaim for her keen eye. In 2007, she published a bestselling memoir, Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me, and flipped the narrative on the muse label by finally sharing her side of the story.
Read on to learn all about the high-profile marriages of the ’60s It Girl—and what she’s been up to since then.
Pattie Boyd’s marriage to George Harrison
Pattie Boyd was in high demand as a model, rocking looks from Swinging London designers like Ossie Clark and Mary Quant, and a 1964 potato chip commercial she starred in ended up being pivotal in her personal life. The ad was directed by Richard Lester, who’d go on to direct the Beatles movies A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, and he was so charmed by Boyd that he offered her a bit part in the Fab Four’s first film.
Boyd only had one line, but George Harrison instantly took notice of her, asking her out and jokingly proposing marriage on the spot. Boyd had a boyfriend at the time, and turned him down, but soon after that, Lester called her back to partake in a photoshoot with the band, and she had just broken up with her boyfriend. Sparks flew between the model and the musician, and they began dating, but Boyd had to keep the relationship secret to avoid the wrath of Beatlemaniacs.
Boyd and Harrison married in 1966, and once their relationship was made public, they became one of the most talked-about couples of the day. Boyd was present for all of the Beatles’ biggest moments, and she even helped introduce Harrison to meditation and accompanied the band on their influential trip to India.
Harrison wrote a number of songs for Boyd, including one of the most beautiful love songs of all time, the 1969 ballad “Something,” “I Need You” (1965), “If I Needed Someone” (1965), “Love You To” (1966) and “For You Blue” (1970).
Tensions began to arise in Boyd and Harrison’s marriage as the Beatle became more and more interested in Eastern spirituality and started using drugs excessively. By the ’70s, it became clear that he was cheating on her, and when he had an affair with Maureen Starkey, the wife of Ringo Starr, it was the last straw. The couple separated in 1974 and divorced in 1977.
Looking back on her marriage to Harrison, Boyd said, “Just because things didn’t work out as we planned, it didn’t diminish our love for each other,” and while there was some drama when she married his best friend, Eric Clapton, in 1979, they ended up staying close until his passing in 2001.
Pattie Boyd’s marriage to Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton and George Harrison became close friends in the late ’60s, while the Beatle was married to Boyd, and Clapton developed an infatuation with her, and went so far as to date her younger sister, Paula, in an effort to get closer to her.
Clapton also started sending Boyd love letters while her marriage to Harrison was deteriorating, and she remembered, “Things were going wrong with George and me. We were going in different directions. So it was difficult to try and maintain this loving, harmonious relationship with George while Eric was also writing to me, declaring love and all this sort of stuff. I was married to George, but he was really distancing himself. So I was in a very difficult position.”
Clapton then invited Boyd to listen to a new song of his, “Layla” (1970), which he would record with his band Derek and the Dominoes. She instantly recognized that the song was about his unrequited love for her, and knew that her husband would be able to see that as well. At a party the same night that Clapton played his famous song, he finally told his best friend he was in love with his wife. His song “Bell Bottom Blues,” which appeared on the same album as “Layla” was also inspired by his feelings for Boyd.
In 1974, Boyd left Harrison for Clapton, and she recalled her ex saying, “Well, I’m glad you’re going off with Eric instead of some idiot.” While the situation was undeniably messy, Harrison found humor in it, and called himself the “husband-in-law.” Boyd and Clapton married in 1979, and Harrison attended the ceremony, where he staged a jam session with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
Before they married, Clapton wrote his 1977 love song “Wonderful Tonight” for Boyd, and decades later she used the ballad as the title for her memoir. Like with her first marriage, Boyd and Clapton were a subject of fascination for music fans, but unfortunately the wonderful times didn’t last.
The marriage became strained by Clapton’s alcoholism, and he later admitted to being physically abusive towards Boyd. On top of that, he committed frequent infidelities and in the ’80s he fathered children with two different women outside of the marriage while Boyd had suffered from miscarriages and unsuccessful IVF treatments.
Clapton’s betrayals understandably took a toll on Boyd, and their marriage ended in 1989. Years later, when Boyd was writing her memoir, Clapton gave her permission to publish his love letters, and she said that with time, she felt, “Because it all broke up for whatever reason, there is no need to carry on some sort of hate or dislike for this person.”
What Pattie Boyd is up to today
In the late ’80s, Boyd met Rod Weston, who was not a rock star but a property developer. They dated for over two decades before tying the knot in 2015, and have been together ever since then. She said that being with him is “Like living in a cocktail party” and while he may not write songs about her, they’ve been happily coupled for longer than Boyd was ever with Harrison or Clapton.
Boyd released Pattie Boyd: My Life in Pictures, a coffee table book filled with archival photos and musings from her fabulous life, in 2022. Asked what she thought of the muse label upon the book’s release, she said, “I think it’s actually a source of pride. As long as it doesn’t kill me. When I think of a muse, I think of somebody being painted by an artist. Normally they were sort of used and abused and they died in poverty. All they were was a name, and then they were just never seen or heard of again. I’m a lucky muse because I’ve maintained. And I’ve endured.”
Pattie Boyd is a living legend, and we love how she’s embraced the muse label and offered a singular perspective on the ’60s scene.
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