Pattie Boyd threw her support behind her ex-husband, Eric Clapton, more than three decades after their divorce.
Taking to Instagram on Friday, April 24, Boyd, 82, shared a photo of Clapton, 81, on stage during a live performance in England earlier this week.
“Fabulous to see Eric in the relatively intimate G-Live venue in Guildford on Monday evening,” Boyd captioned the photo.
She added, “Great to hear ‘Old Love,’ ‘Layla’ and ‘Wonderful Tonight’ (amongst others) live again.”
The songs “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight” have long been rumored to have been penned about Boyd, when Clapton was pining for her during her marriage to his friend, The Beatles’ George Harrison.
Boyd was first married to Harrison after they crossed paths on the set of The Beatles’ movie A Hard Day’s Night. The pair tied the knot in Surrey, England in January 1966 but their marriage was later plagued with infidelity and they divorced in 1977.
Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd in 1975. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)
Clapton fell for Boyd while she was still married to Harrison, sparking an infamous pop culture love triangle.
Boyd and Clapton exchanged vows in 1979 and were married until 1989, with the relationship marred by a string of infidelities, unsuccessful IVF attempts and the singer’s battle with alcoholism.
The model later reflected on her marriages to Clapton and Harrison via an essay written for The Guardian decades after the respective relationships ended.
MFleetwood Mac is perhaps the most famous example of bandmates dating each other — and the ensuing complications that come with it. “I broke up with Lindsey [Buckingham] in 1976. We’d only been in Fleetwood Mac for a year and a half, and we were breaking up when we joined Fleetwood Mac,” Stevie Nicks recalled […]
“I think men are mainly unfaithful because as they get older, they feel the urge to prove to themselves that they are still attractive. They need proof from outside the marriage. It’s really sad. It’s all about them. It’s not about their wives at all. With George and Eric it was simply because they had women telling them how wonderful they were all the time. Women make the mistake of thinking that sex is love. Men are able to be a bit more detached about it,” Boyd wrote for The Guardian in November 2008.
She continued, “I read Eric’s autobiography and his description of our marriage. His reflection of it is much colder than I believed he felt at the time. I fell into his seductive trap and I believed it, whereas reading his book it seemed like he had forgotten how he was when we were together. Women hang onto the romanticism of a relationship. But a man compartmentalises it into the past and then gets on with his new life. I wasn’t very happy with his version of events.”
