I read somewhere that Lory Del Santo (Conor Clapton’s mother) admitted to having an affair with George, like they were both trying to get revenge on Eric. Idk if it’s fake or not, do you know anything about it?
George with Lory Del Santo
It appears George had a very brief affair with Lory Del Santo during his tour of Japan in 1991. First of all, a little background…
Lory Del Santo is an Italian actress, TV presenter and model. She had a relationship with Eric Clapton in the late eighties, while Eric was still married to Pattie. The affair resulted in the birth of a son, Conor, and is what effectively ended Eric and Pattie’s marriage.
Eric, Lory and baby Conor.
“When I told [Lory] I wanted to get back to my wife, [Pattie] she told me she was pregnant. Conor was the first thing that happened in my life to touch me deeply, telling me it was time to grow up.”
[Eric Clapton, Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars]
You may have heard the very sad story about Conor, Eric’s son. Tragically, aged only 4, Conor died in a terrible accident when he fell from a 53rd floor window of a New York apartment. Eric had only really just started to develop a relationship with his son, although his relationship with his mother had ended. Eric wrote the song Tears in Heaven about it. The date of the accident was 20th March 1991. Both George and Pattie attended the little boy’s funeral.
Earlier that year, Eric Clapton had played 24 nights at the Royal Albert Hall. George had popped in to see him and a conversation has taken place where Eric basically challenged George to playing a live tour again. George hadn’t toured since 1974, and I don’t think he was entirely keen on the idea. Nonetheless, a short tour was arranged for December 1991. George didn’t have a band, so Eric ‘loaned’ him his, and agreed to play with him too. The tour was billed as "Rock Legends: George Harrison And Eric Clapton And His Band” and took place exclusively in Japan, 12 shows over 6 venues.
Just before the tour started, George had a disagreement with Eric’s manager, Roger Forrester. There appeared to be tensions between Eric and George, not just about this, but as some have suggested because Eric didn’t like to play second fiddle to George (Eric had played and toured Japan and elsewhere a lot, but the return of a ex-Beatle to playing live after so long was big news), and possibly that he thought George would refuse the challenge and was annoyed his bluff had been called. He was also withdrawn and isolated himself during the tour, as I imagine you can appreciate he was still consumed with anger, grief and guilt over his son’s death.
When the tour reached Hiroshima on the 6th December 1991, George arranged a visit for the band to the Peace Memorial Park to see the Peace Bell the following day. Eric chose not to go along - instead he went shopping at Giorgio Armani.
Later, also in Hiroshima, Lory arrived unexpectedly.
“Lory showed up out of the blue and just checked into our hotel. I couldn’t handle it. Curiously enough, George stepped in and took control. They travelled around together and he seemed to have a calming influence on her.”
A little bit of an understatement perhaps, as Lory claimed in her autobiography later that during this time, she and George had a 3 day affair while staying at the Sun Plaza hotel. Lory’s spin on the story is that both she and George were seeking a sort of emotional revenge on Eric - Lory because of Eric’s cold behaviour towards her and George because of the resentment he still harboured over losing Pattie to Eric. I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Here’s Lory’s story:
“It was so private …so special. [George] asked a lot of questions about Eric. He needed to. And I needed to talk…He was so sweet. He was very caring. It was not all about sex. […]
“With Eric, I couldn’t talk. He was always very distant, even worse after Conor’s [death]. I was not sleeping with Eric at that time. […]
“It could have started as a payback day. [George] probably had revenge in his mind, but so did I. We were both hurt, angry with Eric. But what might have started as revenge became so special. I realised, ‘Wow! George Harrison really likes me… And I like him a lot!’ He was a very quiet person. He cared whether I ate, he let me talk. He cared about what I had to say. Time just flew by.
It probably started because we both wanted revenge. We were hurting. We had this loneliness. But it turned out to be something special.“
Lory stated that Eric never found out about the affair.
“It is not that George and I were hiding, but we spent a lot of time in his suite upstairs. We wanted to have a private time. So both George and I got even [with Eric]. I didn’t want to tell Eric or talk about it. I didn’t want to ruin the moment.
”[George] did everything to perfection. No gifts. He called me and he said, ‘I hope to see you.’ But I knew we would never see each other. I am sure he knew… He told me, ‘You are so sweet. I can’t believe a man would never want to be with you for ever.’“
Lory left after their 3 day affair and shortly afterwards Olivia and Dhani joined George for the rest of the tour.
The part I’m not sure about, is I don’t think George would do this for revenge. It was getting on to be nearly 20 years since the George-Pattie-Eric love triangle and I can’t see George still harbouring resentment or wanting revenge over that. I think he’d gotten over it by that point. He had a new wife and a teenage son, and I can’t see that he’d continue to be close friends with Eric if he still had feelings like that. I do think there was a strong element of competition between him and Eric (one reason why he decided to take on the tour in the first place) which could have something to do with it. Or maybe as Eric was no longer involved with Lory, he thought she was ‘fair game’ for want of a better expression.
I think Lory’s story is believable, and I can’t begrudge her her time with George. She seems to have been touched by tragedy a lot in her life (another one of her son’s committed suicide only recently). I don’t think her assessment of George’s motives is right, but perhaps that’s her way of understanding it herself.
Lory’s quotes are from a TV interview with journalist, Daphne Barak.
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