George Harrison Made His 1st Wife, Pattie Boyd, Quit Modeling but She Grew Bored of Being ‘the Little Wife Sitting at Home’
Shortly after The Beatles’ final live performance, George Harrison advised his wife, Pattie Boyd, to quit modeling. Ditching her job meant Boyd wouldn’t have to deal with the crowds as much. However, it didn’t help. It only made Boyd feel more lonely.
George Harrison and his first wife, Pattie Boyd, were like one person
Boyd met George on the set of The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night in 1964. She was an extra, and when George clapped eyes on her, it was love at first sight. The Beatle asked the actor/model to marry him right then and there. When she laughed at him, he asked her out on a date instead. She was dating someone, so she declined.
However, after her friends scolded Boyd for turning down a date with a Beatle, she broke up with her boyfriend and went out with George. The group’s manager chaperoned their date, but that wasn’t the weirdest thing to happen in her relationship with George.
Boyd said she never viewed her boyfriend and soon-to-be husband as a “giant.” However, nothing about George’s life and their life as a couple was normal. Everywhere the couple went, the press or hoards of fans followed. They came home once to find two fans hiding under their bed. Those same fans physically assaulted Boyd as she came out of Beatles concerts.
No one prepared Boyd for being a Beatle girlfriend or wife, but at least she and George did everything together. In Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison, Joshua M. Greene wrote, “From the start of their relationship in March 1964, she played an active role in George’s busy life.
“In a typical month, they would attend recording sessions, gather with friends, meet with record industry executives, have meals with fellow entertainers, and occasionally vacation to places such as Hawaii or Tahiti. They attended Allen Ginsberg’s thirty-ninth birthday party and made a hasty retreat when the beat
poet greeted them in the nude.
“They went clubbing with the Moody Blues, attended premieres of films such as ‘Alfie’ with Michael Caine, and smiled when friends would refer to ‘George-and-Pattie’ instead of ‘George,’ as though they were a single entity.”
Even George’s father called his son’s romance with Boyd a “genuine modern-day love story.” However, the first minor crack that formed in the couple’s relationship technically happened before they even married, after George met his musical guru Ravi Shankar. Once the legendary sitarist began teaching George sitar, the Beatle felt he could’ve left everything in his life behind, including Boyd, to learn more.
George made Boyd quit modeling, but being a housewife was boring
In 1966, Beatlemania was at its worst. George hated that he couldn’t go anywhere. Touring was dangerous for the group, and fans weren’t listening to them anyway, so they stopped. After The Beatles’ last concert, George made Boyd quit modeling.
Greene wrote, “He knew she relished her work but argued that there was danger in public exposure.” However, there might have been another reason why George wanted his wife home.
Greene continued, “Ringo called it a ‘flat-cap’ attitude embedded from childhood. ‘We were very northern,’ he said. ‘The wives stayed at home and we went to work. We dug the coal and they cooked dinner.’
“Pattie bridled at the restrictions. ‘All [Beatles] wives and girlfriends were made to feel that we shouldn’t leave the ‘family’ at all,’ she said. ‘We mainly went out with each other. . . . We were cocooned.'”
Still, George and Boyd did everything together and embarked on spiritual journeys. In 1966, George and Boyd spent six weeks in India learning to meditate and read spiritual texts. While Boyd was at home, she found a newspaper clipping advertising a lecture by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Boyd urged George to join her. Later, in 1968, she accompanied her husband to the guru’s retreat in India with the rest of The Beatles.
However, that same year, Boyd was getting sick of being a stay-at-home wife. “I just don’t want to be the little wife sitting at home,” she said. “I want to do something worthwhile.”
Then, her husband made friends with devotees of the Hare Krishna Temple. Boyd began to feel left out. She supported George on his spiritual journey, but she wasn’t willing to tread down the path as far as he did.
Boyd returned to modeling
By 1971, Boyd grew tired of constantly having the devotees over the house. “Pattie had grown tired of Friar Park’s isolation and the incessant company of George’s fellow chanters,” Greene wrote. “She wanted a life
of her own again.”
So, Boyd took control and started modeling again. She accepted an offer to model in an Ossie Clark fashion show.
“Clark, whose designs featured transparent fabrics and exposed flesh, held a midnight showing of his work in May 1971 at the Royal Court Theatre… Pattie followed, twirling a cape off her shoulders, a declaration of independence that added to the distance separating her from George.”
In an interview with The Telegraph, Boyd touched on George wanting her to quit modeling. “I’m probably an old fashioned girl at heart, that the man is the king of the house,” she said, “and so I didn’t expect to be on the same par as George, obviously, but everything was really for him.”
Eventually, George and Boyd couldn’t hold on to their marriage anymore. Boyd told People, “George and I were going in different directions. He was starting to distance himself from me.”
By 1974, George’s friend Eric Clapton had been in love with her for four years. Initially, she ignored his advances, hoping to rekindle things with George. However, after George had one too many extramarital affairs, Boyd finally left George for Clapton. She inspired some of the best love songs from both her ex-husbands but doesn’t consider herself a muse.
Calling herself a muse would be narcissistic, and Boyd never put herself first.
