Beatles Fans Used to Break Into George Harrison’s House and Steal Things
Pattie Boyd married George Harrison at the height of the Beatles’ fame. Fans swarmed her husband everywhere they went and often threw abuse at Boyd when she was out in public. She explained that things became particularly hard after fans discovered where Harrison lived. While Boyd didn’t initially share the home with him, she kept some belongings in the house. She explained that they used to steal things from the home.
Pattie Boyd met George Harrison on the set of the first Beatles film
Boyd and Harrison met in 1964 on the set of the first Beatles film, A Hard Day’s Night. Harrison was immediately drawn to Boyd, but she had a boyfriend at the time. Later, they met again, and a newly single Boyd accepted his advances. By 1966, they were married.
The couple wed at a Surrey registry office. The wedding was not what Boyd had hoped for, but it was what the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein planned.
“Not the most glamorous place, it was not the wedding I had dreamt of – I would have loved to be married in church, but Brian didn’t want a big fuss,” she wrote in the book Wonderful Tonight. “They all trusted him so implicitly that when he said it should be a quiet register office wedding George agreed. He also said it had to be secret – if the press found out, it would be chaotic.”
She said that fans of The Beatles broke into George Harrison’s home
Before Boyd and Harrison married, he bought a home. While she had her own place, she moved several items into his house. According to Boyd, this became a problem once fans of The Beatles discovered where Harrison lived.
“The fans were making life intolerable for us, and not only when the Beatles were performing,” she wrote. “None of them could go into or out of their flats without being grabbed, mauled, and begged for autographs at any time of day or night.”
Harrison lived in a property outside London called Kinfauns. While it seemed protected, with fourteen-foot-high gates, fans didn’t have a hard time finding a way in.
“The gate was operated manually, though, and it wasn’t long before the marauding fans discovered where George lived,” she wrote. “Hordes of girls used to hang about outside, waiting for me to go out. If the gate was ever left open, they would come onto the grounds. They also discovered that if they put stones into the sliding mechanism it wouldn’t shut properly and they could squeeze through.”
She explained that fans would break into Harrison’s home and steal belongings.
“I kept finding clothes missing and once George gave me a beautiful Piaget watch that disappeared,” she wrote. “I presume some fan took it. Once when my brothers David and Boo were staying they woke up to find two girls in the drawing room. David was delighted.”
The couple divorced in 1977
Boyd and Harrison divorced in 1977. Though the love between them was real, their relationship had begun to fracture long before their divorce.
Following their split, Boyd married Eric Clapton, and Harrison married the future Olivia Harrison. Boyd and Clapton divorced in 1989, and she married her boyfriend, Rod Weston, in 2015.
