“We’re going up to Benares. It’s either now or twenty years from now, and I’m not sure if I’m going to be around twenty years from now. We’re targets for assassination, you know.”
“Oh, George, stop that,” Olivia said. “Just stop that!” (1976)
[Alistair Taylor] recalled an incident [in 1963] when The Beatles were flying to London from Liverpool Airport, but George hadn’t turned up. The others went to London, leaving Alistair to contact George.
“I rang him at home to find out what was going on. George said, ‘I don’t want to be a Beatle’. In a panic, I went round to talk to him and George said he didn’t like all the pressure and the frenzy of the crowds and the fans. Thankfully, he came to his senses and the matter was never discussed again until they finished touring in 1966.” - Liddypool: Birthplace of The Beatles
"When the door, in fact, did open, a girl reached in, grabbed George’s hair and tore at it. Out in the crowd, pushing our way through, I noticed blood trickling down his forehead. If you’re interested in that kind of frenzy, where love turns to violence, you should read a Greek tragedy called The Bacchae. Two thousand years ago, its author, Euripides, could tell you all about Beatles fans, only his hero had not just his hair but his arms and legs pulled off. Mum kept the head." - Victor Spinetti
"He had a very, very bad experience in Manila and that remained unforgettable for George. He was a very slight man, very light in weight, and the fear of being vulnerable to fans, and crazy people, remained with him.” - Pattie Boyd
"Nobody else knew that George Harrison was in fear of his life ‘cause he actually had some poison pen letters saying, 'You’ll die in the next five days,’ and the assassination of Kennedy wasn’t so far away. It was pretty hair raising stuff." - George Martin
"Those tours in the United States were crazy. The first big American trip, when we arrived in San Francisco in 1964, they wanted to do a ticker tape parade and I remember saying 'No, no, no.' That imagery of people being shot. Kennedy, Beatlemania, madness. Talk about pressures!" - George Harrison
"He used to enjoy a drink at the Row Barge pub in Henley but he didn’t go into the town as much after John Lennon was shot.”
Mr. Robb’s wife, Mina, added: “That really shook him — he used to say that if he landed after a flight, and came out onto the steps of the plane, he would be wondering which person might have a gun.” - A Generous Man
“I remember him visiting me on tour in Germany. He would come to the side of the stage and look out. But he really didn’t want to go on. He would go, ‘It’s so loud and smoky, and they are acting so crazy. I just feel better back here.’" - Tom Petty
"By the time Tania and I arrived at Friar Park, George and Liv were patched up, but angry, like all victims of violent crime, and in need of good friendship. Nobody had more good friends all round the world, and flowers and faxes poured in. We played guitars and sang. George was very shaken. I had never seen him like this. He needed constant hugs." - Eric Idle
"When he had that dreadful thing happen to him in 1999, when he was stabbed in his own home, he was so emotional and was very vulnerable. He phoned me and said he couldn’t stay in the house, saying ‘Jackie, you know all the hotels in London, I thought the Grosvenor House would be good because I’ve been there with you’. I told him 'you can’t go there because that boxer who bit someone’s ear [Mike Tyson] is living there and there’s media around all the time. You can’t go there, George’. And he said, 'Oh, can I come to your house?’ So he, Olivia and Dhani came to live with us for a little while. He was a gentle man and to be violated in that way was a terrible thing for him." - Sir Jackie Stewart
"You know, I was lying there and I was thinking, 'I can't believe it. After everything that's happened to me, I'm going to be murdered. I'm being murdered in my own home. Since I'm being murdered, and I'm going to die, I better start letting go of this life, and I better start doing what I've been practicing to do my whole life — so that I can leave my body the way I want to." - George Harrison
"George died two years after the stabbing incident, under much more peaceful circumstances… and that’s really the core story of 'Heroic Couple.' 'The point of writing that poem, and I didn't really know the point of it until I got to the end, was that it wasn't long afterwards that death proper — not imposter — happened,' Olivia explains. 'You know, if [the home invasion] would've been his actual death, that would've been just the worst thing. The fact is, when George did die, he did it on his own terms. He was very much in control and in charge of that day. And he felt that John Lennon was really cheated. I mean, it's one thing to have your life stolen from you, but to also have stolen the opportunity to leave your body in a way that would be beneficial? If you believe that the way you die is important — and I do, and George did — then to be robbed of the chance to leave how you want to leave is just the worst. And that's why it was almost like George earned the death that he had. Had he died that night [during the knife attack], I don't know how I would [have] recovered from that. It just would've been awful. It came close. But the point of writing that poem was really to say that George didn't die that way.'"
- Olivia Harrison interviewed by Lyndsey Parker
