Pattie Boyd Saw Her Sister Pass a Lit Joint to Princess Margaret After She and George Harrison Were Arrested for Drugs
In the 1960s, police conducted drug raids at the homes of many musicians, and George Harrison and Pattie Boyd were not spared. They were preparing to go to a party when police officers arrived at their home demanding to search for drugs. After the lengthy and stressful ordeal, they still went to the party to cheer themselves up. There, Boyd watched her sister pass a lit joint to Princess Margaret.
Police raided George Harrison and Pattie Boyd’s home for drugs
Boyd was at the home she shared with Harrison when she heard cars approaching outside. At first, she wondered if it was Paul McCartney and his wife, who had been married earlier that day
“I opened the door to find a crowd of uniformed policemen, one policewoman, and a dog standing outside,” Boyd wrote in the book Wonderful Tonight. “At that moment, the back-door bell rang and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is so scary! I’m surrounded by police.’”
She called Harrison to have him come home and waited as the officers searched her home. Boyd also believed that they planted drugs in the home. Once Harrison arrived home, they arrested the couple.
She watched her sister pass drugs to Princess Margaret
The officers took Boyd and Harrison to the police station to be processed and fingerprinted.
“We were formally charged but released on bail,” Boyd explained. “We got home feeling gloomy, so George said, ‘Come on, let’s go to the party.’”
The party was at the home of painter Rory McEwan, who was friends with Princess Margaret. She was in attendance with her husband, Lord Snowdon.
“The first person we saw when we arrived at Rory McEwan’s house was Lord Snowdon,” she wrote. “Thinking — in vain — that he might be able to pull a few strings, George rushed over to him. ‘Can you help us? The most awful thing’s just happened.’”
Boyd left them to go downstairs, where she was horrified by what she found.
“Princess Margaret was standing with my youngest sister Paula, who was in the process of handing the Queen’s sister a joint she had just lit,” Boyd wrote. “After everything we’d been through that evening, it was too much. I leaped at her and said, ‘Don’t!’ When I told them what had happened, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon beat a hasty retreat.”
Pattie Boyd shared the way that drugs impacted George Harrison
While the police arrested them for having marijuana, Boyd said that cocaine had actually become a problem in their relationship.
“Like everything, done in moderation it was fine,” she wrote. “Done to excess, it was not. George used coke excessively and I think it changed him.”
She believed that it made him act coldly to her.
“Smoking marijuana changed us too, but it wasn’t destructive,” she wrote. “Dope in the sixties — a very different drug from the skunk kids smoke today — was about peace, love, and increasing awareness. It was the basis of flower power; it was innocent. Cocaine was different and I think it froze George’s emotions and hardened his heart.”
How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.
