George Harrison’s Alleged Affair With Ringo Starr’s Wife Became One of the Beatles’ Most Personal Betrayals — Yet Their Friendship Somehow Survived
The Beatles endured creative clashes, business disputes and complicated relationships during and after their extraordinary rise to fame.
But one of the most uncomfortable stories surrounding the four men had nothing to do with music.
It involved George Harrison and Maureen Cox — the first wife of his bandmate Ringo Starr.
According to Harrison’s first wife, Pattie Boyd, Harrison and Cox had an affair while both couples were still married. Boyd later described the relationship as the “final straw” in the collapse of her own marriage.
The situation became even more remarkable because Harrison and Starr remained friends afterward.
And according to a later biography, Harrison once admitted his feelings directly to the Beatles drummer.
Ringo met Maureen during the Beatles’ early years
Starr, whose real name is Richard Starkey, met Cox shortly after joining the Beatles in 1962.
Cox was a Liverpool hairdresser who had begun visiting the Cavern Club as a teenager, watching the Beatles perform before they became international superstars.
She and Starr started dating in 1962.
He proposed in January 1965, and they married soon afterward, when Cox was 18 and Starr was 24.
John Lennon and Harrison served as witnesses at the wedding, while Beatles manager Brian Epstein was best man. Paul McCartney was in Tunisia and couldn’t attend.
Starr and Cox eventually had three children: Zak, born in 1965; Jason, born in 1967; and Lee, born in 1970.
Harrison was building a family life of his own during roughly the same period.
George Harrison married Pattie Boyd
Harrison met model Pattie Boyd while the Beatles were filming A Hard Day’s Night.
They married in 1966.
But their relationship became increasingly troubled, with Boyd later writing extensively about Harrison’s infidelities.
Among those alleged relationships, one stood apart because of how close the other woman was to both couples.
That woman was Maureen Cox.
Boyd eventually claimed Harrison’s affair with Starr’s wife was the betrayal she could no longer overlook.
“The final straw was his affair with Maureen Starr, Ringo’s wife,” Boyd wrote in her 2007 memoir, Wonderful Today.
“She was the last person I would have expected to stab me in the back, but she did.”
Pattie said she caught them behind a locked door
Boyd’s memoir included an extraordinary account of discovering Harrison and Cox together.
She recalled arriving home and finding the pair inside a locked room.
Boyd said she stood outside, banging on the door and confronting Harrison about Cox being inside.
According to her account, Harrison laughed.
When he eventually opened the door, Boyd said Harrison explained that Cox was tired and had simply gone inside to lie down.
For Boyd, the incident became part of a much larger breakdown in trust.
She and Harrison separated in 1974.
But another account published decades later suggested Starr himself may have known exactly what was happening.
George reportedly told Ringo: ‘I’m in love with your wife’
Neither Harrison nor Starr publicly provided a detailed account of the alleged affair.
However, author Philip Norman revisited the episode in his 2023 biography George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle.
According to Norman, Harrison eventually told Starr directly how he felt about Maureen.
“I’m in love with your wife,” Harrison reportedly said.
Starr’s alleged response was remarkably restrained.
“Better you than someone we don’t know,” he reportedly replied.
Boyd also spoke to Norman about that period, claiming Harrison and Cox made little effort to conceal what was happening from her.
She felt the relationship was being deliberately displayed in front of her.
“Her attitude was very much that she had the right to spend the night with George if she felt like it,” Boyd said.
“I thought, ‘This is being deliberately rubbed in my face.’”
Whatever happened between Harrison and Cox, it did not lead to the two building a permanent life together.
Instead, both marriages eventually ended and all four moved in different directions.
George and Maureen did not end up together
Harrison and Boyd eventually divorced in 1977.
Harrison later built a relationship with Olivia Arias. The couple had a son, Dhani, and married in 1978.
They remained together until Harrison’s death from lung cancer in 2001 at the age of 58.
Boyd’s romantic life became intertwined with another famous musician.
She married Eric Clapton in 1979 after having inspired his famous song “Layla.” Their marriage ended in divorce a decade later.
Cox and Starr’s marriage also fell apart.
They divorced in 1975, with Starr’s own relationship with model Nancy Lee Andrews contributing to the breakdown.
Cox later began a relationship with businessman Isaac Tigrett, cofounder of Hard Rock Cafe and House of Blues.
They eventually married and remained together until Cox’s death from leukemia in 1994. She was 48.
Paul McCartney remembered Maureen in a song
Cox’s death deeply affected people from the Beatles’ extended circle.
Among them was McCartney.
He later wrote “Little Willow” as a tribute to Cox and her children.
The tender track appeared on McCartney’s 1997 album Flaming Pie, ensuring that Cox’s connection to the Beatles story extended far beyond the sensational circumstances surrounding the alleged Harrison affair.
Starr, meanwhile, had already found the woman with whom he would build his second marriage.
Ringo found love again with Barbara Bach
Starr married actress Barbara Bach in 1981.
The two appeared together in the comedy Caveman, although Starr later said he had first noticed Bach at Los Angeles International Airport while she was traveling with another man.
“I fell in love with her,” Starr recalled.
He jokingly said Bach “tortured” him for two months before their relationship took hold.
Starr also became stepfather to Bach’s two children, Francesca and Gianni.
More than four decades later, their marriage remained an important part of his music.
Bach inspired “Thankful,” a song included on Starr’s 2025 album Look Up.
“My world came crashing down and shattered / Then you came along,” Starr sings on the track, describing his partner as his “shelter from the storm.”
Ringo and George remained friends
Perhaps the most striking part of the Harrison-Cox story is what apparently didn’t happen afterward.
The alleged affair could easily have permanently destroyed Harrison and Starr’s friendship.
Instead, their bond survived.
Their personal lives moved on, and Starr and Harrison remained connected until Harrison’s death.
It adds another complicated layer to the history of four men whose relationships were never as simple as the mythology surrounding the Beatles can sometimes suggest.
Behind one of music’s most famous partnerships were marriages, betrayals and friendships that repeatedly collided.
For Pattie Boyd, Harrison’s alleged relationship with Maureen Cox became the final betrayal in an already troubled marriage.
For Harrison and Starr, however, even an admission as extraordinary as “I’m in love with your wife” apparently wasn’t enough to end a friendship forged during the most intense years of Beatlemania.