Pattie Boyd Said George Harrison Was as ‘Blatant’ as Possible in His Infidelity

By the time George Harrison and Pattie Boyd divorced, they had both conducted affairs. Boyd became involved with Eric Clapton before going on to marry him, and Harrison became involved with several women, including Ringo Starr’s wife. Boyd said Harrison didn’t try to hide his infidelity, particularly after he learned that Clapton had feelings for her.

Pattie Boyd said George Harrison didn’t try to hide his infidelity

When Harrison and Boyd were still married, Clapton expressed his feelings for her. This did not help their already strained relationship. Boyd said that afterward, Harrison stopped trying to hide his infidelity.

“George and I had been stumbling along, with things going from bad to worse,” Boyd wrote in her book Wonderful Today. “I don’t know what his feelings were about Eric when he reappeared in our lives. We had been so stoned on the night of Robert Stigwood’s party that he might have forgotten about the confrontation in the mist, but I don’t think so. He never spoke about it but after that night I think he felt he could be as blatant as he liked in his pursuit of other women.”

In 1973, the couple prepared to go on vacation together. The day before they left, however, Harrison claimed he was too sick to join Boyd and told her to go without him. She became suspicious that he had other reasons for staying home.

“My thoughts about George were right,” she wrote. “He didn’t want to go on holiday with me and ended up going to Spain, supposedly to see Salvador Dali, with Ronnie Wood’s wife, Krissie. Ronnie, then bass guitarist with the Faces, and Krissie were friends. They lived in Hampton Court but often came to stay at Friar Park. I was desperately hurt: another of my friends was sleeping with George. When I challenged him he denied it, and tried once again to make me feel as though I was paranoid.”

George Harrison did not respond kindly when Pattie Boyd caught him cheating

Harrison caused a rift with Boyd and the other Beatles when he began a relationship with Starr’s wife. Boyd said this was the death blow to her marriage. 

“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.”

Boyd once returned home and discovered that Harrison and Maureen had locked themselves in a room together. 

“I stood outside banging on the door and saying to George, ‘What are you doing? Maureen’s in there, isn’t she? I know she is,’ but he laughed,” she explained. “He was supposed to be in the studio and everyone was waiting for him. Eventually he opened the door and said, ‘Oh, she’s just a bit tired so she’s lying down.’”

His second wife spoke about working through marital difficulties with him

After his divorce from Boyd, Harrison married his second wife, Olivia. She admitted they faced marital problems as well, but felt it was worth it to work through them.

“You go through challenges in your marriage and here is what I found: the first time we had a big hiccup in the road, we came through things, and then you go, ‘Wow!’ There is a reward at the end of it,” she said, per The Guardian. “There is this incredible reward because you have lived through more and you have let go of something.”