In the 1960s, The Beatles were the biggest band in the world, and their fans were willing to do anything to feel closer to them. This included breaking into their homes. While this seems like an extreme action to take, it happened more than once. Here are three times Beatles fans broke into their homes and stole things.
Beatles fans broke into George Harrison’s house more than once
Before George Harrison and his first wife Pattie Boyd married, she had moved a number of items into his home. His property had a high fence, but fans still managed to make their way onto the grounds.
“The gate was operated manually, though, and it wasn’t long before the marauding fans discovered where George lived,” she wrote in her book Wonderful Tonight. “Hordes of girls used to hang about outside, waiting for me to go out. If the gate was ever left open, they would come onto the grounds. They also discovered that if they put stones into the sliding mechanism it wouldn’t shut properly and they could squeeze through.”
“The thing is, we never believed in Beatlemania, never took the whole thing that seriously, I suppose. That way, we managed to stay sane.” – Paul ➿ pic.twitter.com/BFhJNtk4VL
— The Beatles (@thebeatles) April 6, 2019
According to Boyd, fans broke in multiple times and even stole some of her belongings.
“I kept finding clothes missing and once George gave me a beautiful Piaget watch that disappeared,” she wrote. “I presume some fan took it. Once when my brothers David and Boo were staying they woke up to find two girls in the drawing room. David was delighted.”
Paul McCartney wrote a Beatles song about a fan who broke in
The Abbey Road song “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” comes from a real event in Paul McCartney’s life. Fans hanging around outside his house discovered that he wasn’t home. They decided to take advantage of this opportunity and break in.
“We were bored, he was out and so we decided to pay him a visit,” a fan named Diane Ashley said, per the book A Hard Day’s Write by Steve Turner. “We found a ladder in his garden and stuck it up at the bathroom window which he’d left slightly open. I was the one who climbed up and got in.”
Per Rolling Stone, they stole a pair of pants, a tape of the song “The End,” and some of Linda McCartney’s photographs. McCartney reportedly demanded that they give the items back. When they asked how he knew it was them, he told them, “A real burglar would have taken more expensive things.”
John Lennon’s aunt had to move because of a break in
John Lennon grew up with his aunt, Mimi Smith, and she wanted to remain in her Liverpool home after Lennon rose to fame. Eventually, some Beatles fans caused her to move.
Smith was sick in bed and left the backdoor open for her doctor. After hearing noises downstairs, she assumed someone had broken in. Instead of finding burglars, though, Smith found two fans.
“She told them to go, scolding them for coming in without asking, making her house a public property,” Hunter Davies wrote in The Beatles: The Authorized Biography. “They did at last go but on the way out stole her backdoor key. She was in a terrible state when she realized what they’d done and was sure burglars would now really get in, especially as she was ill and should be in bed.”
She changed the locks and soon decided to move out of Liverpool.
