Her stunning good looks, epitomising the waif-like appearance made famous by Twiggy, led to her becoming a top model by the time she was 18.Ī client in the fashion industry recognised her potential and her career quickly took off. Her family moved to London when she was in her teens and she started work as a shampoo girl at Elizabeth Arden’s salon. He had joined rock band The Yardbirds in 1963, while she had been an elite model since 1962, so they moved in the same circles.īoyd was born in March 1944 in Somerset. The pain of Clapton’s love for Boyd played out against the backdrop of London in the Swinging Sixties. His love drove him crazy because he couldn’t marry her.Ĭlapton reportedly felt the same way about Boyd, who was married to Harrison between 19. Based on the classical poet Nizami Ganjavi’s 12th-century poem, The Story of Layla and Majnun, Ganjavi wrote of a young man who fell desperately in love with a beautiful woman, but she was unavailable. The album’s mega-hit single, Layla, was said to have been written for Boyd. He thought of her as his muse and it was reported that she inspired him to write the album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs for his band, Derek and the Dominoes, in 1970. The Taunton-born model was married to his friend – the Beatles’ lead guitarist George Harrison. When Eric Clapton met Pattie Boyd, he was besotted with her from the start – but his love remained unrequited for more than a decade. She guided me out of this mire of despond and gradually I learned to believe in myself.The tempestuous relationship between a legendary rock icon and a beautiful model led to the release of some of the most iconic songs of the 1960s. “I was at a critical point in my life, and so I saw a psychotherapist who was quite wonderful. No one knows me-I don’t even know me,” she said.

The couple married in 1979 but Clapton’s heroin addiction quickly ended that relationship too. The guitarist pursued the model for years while still with Harrison-his best friend. Soon after their split, Boyd began seeing Eric Clapton. But we still loved each other… It’s just that I think he wanted to spread his wings and take advantage of being the handsome, famous, rich guy that he was, and see how the girls feel about him. We had gone in different directions, basically. George was just being a different George. “I felt that I had to leave George because things were getting really out of hand. “It was an extremely difficult decision of mine to make,” she added. Harrison reportedly “brought it all home” and became increasingly “difficult to live with.” His mood swings only worsened and led Boyd to make the decision to leave a “ludicrous and hateful life” in 1974. Their relationship started to hit the rocks as the tension between the Beatles began to rise.

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