Pattie Boyd says she wanted royalties from ex-husband Eric Clapton

Her intimate connection to two of the greatest musicians of any generation has spawned songs that are still played, and revered, by fans across the world to this very day. 

But Pattie Boyd, the sixties muse behind some of George Harrison and Eric Clapton’s best known hits, admits she hasn’t seen a penny in royalties despite being responsible for their creation. 

The model, now 78 and a successful author, married softly-spoken Beatles guitarist Harrison in 1966, two years after meeting on the set of the band’s first feature length film, A Hard Day’s Night. 

But she would then be doggedly pursued by an infatuated Clapton, a close friend of the couple and a Beatles collaborator, having provided lead guitar on Harrison’s 1968 hit While My Guitar Gently Weeps, with the pair eventually marrying themselves in 1979.

However, Clapton’s then unrequited obsession with the model, who would rebuff his proclamations of love to remain with Harrison until his own repeated infidelities led to their divorce in 1974, would provide the inspiration for one of the rocker’s biggest hits – Layla. 

Released during his short-lived period with Derek And The Dominoes in 1970, the iconic track served as the foundation for the band’s one and only album, Layla And Other Love Stories, and has since become a stalwart of the classic rock cannon. 

A paean to unrequited love, the song served was inspired by a love story that originated in 7th-century Arabia and later formed the basis of the 12-century Persian tome The Story of Layla and Majnun, a copy of which playwright Ian Dallas gave to Clapton.

The book – which details a tale of a young man who falls hopelessly in love with a beautiful young girl who doesn’t immediately return his affection – would then move a then 25-year-old Clapton so profoundly, he went to pen Layla, a song that has since been hailed as one of the best tunes of all time and broadcasted millions of times.

Despite its success, however, Boyd – who married Clapton five years after divorcing Harrison – now claims she hasn’t received a single royalty check in the 52 years since the track’s release. 

Opening up: The model, now 78 and a successful author, has reflected on her marriages to Beatles legend Harrison and his close friend, guitar virtuoso Clapton 

Old times: Boyd married softly-spoken Beatles guitarist Harrison in 1966, two years after meeting on the set of the band’s first feature length film, A Hard Day’s Night

With tongue firmly in cheek, she told The Sunday Times’ Style magazine: ‘I asked for that in my divorce, and he said, “Are you kidding?”‘

Boyd, who also served as the inspiration to Clapton’s 1977 song Wonderful Tonight, then scoffed: ‘That’s why I have to write books.’ 

Boyd also inspired some of Harrison’s finer work with The Beatles, notably I Need You, If I Needed Someone, Love You To and the 1969 ballad Something – one of the stand-outs from their classic album, Abbey Road.

Harrison would also write 1973 solo track So Sad about his marriage to Boyd, which bore no children. 

Recalling her first meeting with the Beatles legend on the set of A Hard Days Night, she said: ‘He was so good looking and sweet, chatting away.  They [The Beatles] were all wearing little dark suits and little black ties.’ 

Two years later the couple married at Epsom Registry Office, but the marriage would end in 1974 – paving the way for Boyd’s eventual ten year marriage to Clapton. 

Obsessed: But she would be doggedly pursued by an infatuated Clapton, a close friend of the couple and a Beatles collaborator, with the musician later writing classic track Layla about her

Muse: Boyd also inspired some of Harrison’s finer work with The Beatles, notably I Need You, If I Needed Someone, Love You To and the 1969 ballad Something

Iconic: Boyd became synonymous with the swinging sixties counter culture thanks to her association with The Beatles 

‘Yes, he was very gorgeous and sexy, very stylish,’ she recalled of her first meeting with the musician, at the height of Beatle-mania in the mid-sixties. 

‘[Beatles manager] Brian Epstein had a theatre and Eric was playing there.  We all went back to Brian’s flat and he became friends with George.’ 

The couple would divorce in 1989, and Boyd admits she knew her rock star romances were over following their separation. 

‘I didn’t need to say it to myself,’ she said. ‘I already knew it.’ 

The model married for a third time in 2015, to property developer Rod Weston, after meeting during a holiday in Sri Lanka.