John Lennon ‘Never Entirely Suppressed’ His Crush on George Harrison’s Wife, Pattie Boyd

John Lennon was the first Beatle to get married, but that didn’t stop him from pursuing other women, including, to a certain extent, Pattie Boyd. Boyd married Lennon’s bandmate, George Harrison, in 1966, but they began dating in 1964. As a result, Lennon knew her for years. In this time, he reportedly harbored a crush on Boyd. According to Lennon’s longtime friend, Pete Shotton, Lennon didn’t always do a good job of hiding this.

John Lennon had a crush on Pattie Boyd 

Long before he met Boyd, Lennon developed a crush on Brigitte Bardot. She became his ideal type, and he encouraged his wife, Cynthia, to change her appearance to look more like Bardot.

“Of course, as a teenager, my sexual fantasies were full of Anita Ekberg and the usual giant Nordic goddesses,” Lennon said in The Beatles Anthology. “That is, until Brigitte Bardot became the love of my life in the late Fifties. (All my girlfriends who weren’t dark-haired suffered my constant pressure to become Brigitte). By the time I married my first wife — who was a natural auburn — she too had become a long-haired blonde with the obligatory bangs.”

Boyd, who had blonde hair and bangs, resembled Bardot. Lennon found himself drawn to her as a result.

“A sometime model, Pattie tended to be the most fashionably dressed woman in the Beatles’ entourage, and John never entirely suppressed his appreciation of her nymphlike features,” Shotton wrote in his book The Beatles, Lennon, and Me. “Though just a little bit on the flighty side, Pattie was a genuinely sweet girl, with a great sense of fun.”

Pattie Boyd once acknowledged rumors of an affair between herself and John Lennon

Boyd noted that she got along well with Lennon, which didn’t help her relationship with Cynthia. 

“I think she felt a bit out of her depth in the smart, sophisticated circles in which the Beatles were now moving in London,” Boyd wrote in her book Wonderful Tonight. “And I don’t think it helped that John thought I looked like Brigitte Bardot, or that I got on so well with him. There was a rumor — I don’t know where it came from — that John and I had an affair, and I suppose Cynthia may have believed there was something in it.”

She denied that she ever had an affair with Lennon. He frequently cheated on Cynthia, which was likely why she believed the rumors could be true.

George Harrison had an affair with Ringo Starr’s wife

While Lennon might have flirted with Boyd, her husband was the only one to cheat with a bandmate’s spouse. After The Beatles broke up, Harrison began spending time with Ringo Starr’s wife, Maureen Starkey. 

“The final straw was his affair with Maureen Starr, Ringo’s wife,” Boyd wrote. “She was the last person I would have expected to stab me in the back, but she did.”

Harrison denied that he was having an affair for a long time. Eventually, at a dinner party at Starr’s house, he admitted to it. In the aftermath of the affair, both couples ended their marriages.