It was a love triangle for the ages.
Sixties supermodel Pattie Boyd was famously at the center of a rift between guitar-riffing gods George Harrison and Eric Clapton.
In fact, Clapton tried to woo Boyd with secret love letters while she was married to late Harrison — when the two Rock & Roll Hall of Famers were best friends.
And his pen mission was accomplished: Boyd left the late Beatle — who had written the “Abbey Road” classic “Something” about his then-wife — and went on to marry the former Yardbird in 1979.
Now Boyd, 79, is planning to auction off Clapton’s love letters — with the blessing of the musician who wrote two of his biggest solo classics, “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight,” before their divorce in 1989.
The online Christie’s auction is scheduled to run from March 8 to March 22.
In one of the letters, Clapton declares to Boyd: “Take me, I am yours.”
In another, he asks: “What I wish to ask you is, if you still love your husband? … But if there is still a feeling in your heart for me . . . you must let me know.”
In yet another letter, addressed to “Dear Layla,” Clapton writes: “Why do you hesitate, am I a poor lover, am I ugly, am I too weak, too strong, do you know why?”
“If you want me, take me, I am yours. If you don’t want me, please break the spell that binds me. To cage a wild animal is a sin, to tame him is divine.”
Legend has it that — after the bestie betrayal was discovered — Clapton and Harrison dueled on their guitars for the right to fair Pattie’s hand.
And after he lost Boyd to Clapton in the fabled battle of the axes, Harrison somehow managed to forgive them both, even going to their house for Christmas after the bro-code-busting breakup.
“The letters from Eric, they’re so desperate and passionate, a passion that blooms once in a lifetime, I think,” Boyd told the UK’s Sun.
“Even now, if I were to read those letters, it makes me terribly sad. I’ve had them in a little trunk and occasionally I’ll have a look and start to read, and my heart beats, it jumps, because it’s heartbreaking. They’re too painful in their beauty.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
