George Harrison and Eric Clapton, 1974, from Eric Clapton: Life In 12 Bars, photo © Prod DB © Passion Pictures/TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy Stock Photo; a note from George and Olivia to Eric and Pattie, written during the Dark Horse Tour, photo: screenshot from the e-book edition of Pattie’s book Wonderful Tonight.
“There’s so much in life to do and to deal with… I don’t know, maybe I’m just lucky, you know, maybe I’m just lucky to be able to think of things the way I do. There’s no point in getting hung up about things, you know. It’s easier just to deal with it. And you go through ups and downs and, you know, sad things, but all that for me it… like The Beatles, when we actually split up it was just the relief, we should have done it years before because you could see it coming if you look back. And the same with like marriage for me. We [George and Pattie] should have split up years before. Because all the songs to do with, you know, the miserable side of it were all done, a lot of them came before there actually was public knowledge that we split. Except there’s another one on the Dark Horse album [released in 1974] which is a really nice song, the only problem with it is it’s sad, it’s too sad… but that’s what it was. That’s ‘So Sad.’” - George Harrison, BBC Radio, Feb 1977 (x)
“I went on a bit of a bender […]. If you listen to 'Simply Shady,’ on Dark Horse, it’s all in there – my whole life at that time was a bit like [laughing] Mrs. Dale’s Diary [radio soap opera]. […] I could put back a bottle of brandy occasionally, plus all the other naughty things that fly around. I just went on a binge, went on the road… all that sort of thing, until it got to the point where I had no voice and almost no body at times. Then I met Olivia and it all worked out fine.” - George Harrison, Rolling Stone, 19 Apr 1979
“I think really we were going in different directions. You know, he wanted different things out of life, I wanted different things out of life, and we decided that perhaps we should split up.” - Pattie Boyd, Sverige Radio, 16 Sep 2014
“I think everybody was in love with everybody else permanently during the Sixties, you know. I would have been surprised if any of our friends had not all been in love with each other. You know, there’s sex and there’s love. And I think the Sixties period, there was a genuine love for mankind, generally. I’m very liberal, actually, very liberal person. But at that time anyway, over the years, we [George and Pattie] were splitting up. And contrary to what some people think, I was very pleased that they [Pattie and Eric] got together because for me, you know, I didn’t ever want it to be, you know, the bad guy who split it up, like kicked her out or whatever the situation was happening. But really, for years we’d been — potential divorces for, you know, long before all that 'Layla’ and all that stuff happened. And I think it was just a natural thing that happened.” - George Harrison, undated, included in “I Was There: Pattie Boyd,” BBC Radio 2, 26 Sep 2019 (x)
“George’s note was like a forgiveness. It meant a lot to me. I didn’t feel great about leaving him and it showed me he was happy. It was as if the hurt had finally been accepted and healed.” - Pattie Boyd, Sunday Times Magazine, 2011
“That’s the one thing that I think none of us have ever really been sure of, because George was — like his record label — was a dark horse. And he didn’t always tell you exactly what he was thinking. So it may have been that it hurt him more than he let on, you know.” - #EricClapton, CNN Larry King Live, 12 Oct 2007
"Actually we’d been splitting up for years. That was the funny thing, you know. I thought that was the best thing to do, for us to split, and we should’ve just done it much sooner.” - George Harrison, Crawdaddy, Feb 1977
Q: “Do you ever see Pattie?”
George Harrison: “Occasionally. And occasionally [Eric] sees her too! After all the experiences with The Beatles, surely that experience must lead to some sort of knowledge, and knowledge is supposed to lead to liberation. And I certainly liberated myself from some of the mundane things like not talking to your friend just because you all had a divorce.” - Q, 1988
“Does [Pattie] regret leaving [George]? 'I don’t know. Eric and I went to a party once. And George, bless him, was there with Olivia [Harrison]. I said to George, "Darling, do you think I made a big mistake in leaving you?” And he said, “No, no. I was a bit of shit.” I thought that was terribly sweet and generous of him to admit he had been behaving badly, and that he didn’t hold it against me that I left him.’“ - The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 Aug 2007 (x)
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