It’s not a secret that drugs profoundly impacted The Beatles’ music. They completely changed their sound when they started using illegal substances and made some of the most enduring music of all time. But there were downsides, such as when George Harrison and his wife, Pattie Boyd, suspected his dentist of trying to start a drug-fueled orgy with them. 

George Harrison and Pattie Boyd thought his dentist tried to start an orgy with them and John and Cynthia Lennon

The Beatles’ music wasn’t the only thing that changed in the 1960s. Harrison’s smile did, too. Dentist John Riley, something of a celebrity doctor in swinging London, helped straighten the guitarist’s teeth. Harrison and his first wife, Boyd, believed Riley wanted to have an orgy with them, John Lennon, and his first wife, Cynthia.

The two Beatles and their wives attended a dinner hosted by Riley one night in April 1965. Harrison, Boyd, and the Lennons planned to leave after the meal, but the doctor insisted they stay for coffee. Shortly after they downed their cups and got up to leave, Riley informed them they’d been secretly dosed with LSD, per 150 Glimpses of the Beatles.

John was furious at being fed the drug without his knowledge. Boyd didn’t want to ride out the trip at Riley’s house. “I wondered if the dentist, who hadn’t had any coffee, had given it to us hoping the evening might end in an orgy,” she said.

Harrison suspected the same thing as Boyd:

“I’m sure he thought it was an aphrodisiac … I think he thought that there was going to be a big gang bang and that he was going to get to shag everybody. I really think that was his motive.”

The Lennons, Boyd, and Harrison avoided what they suspected might become an orgy when they left Riley’s house. The quartet rode out their trip at the Pickwick Club (where Beatles acquaintance Klaus Voormann and his band were playing) and the Ad Lib, a favorite hangout for the Fab Four. 

John and George didn’t intend to take an acid trip when they showed up for dinner. John hated being dosed without his knowledge. Harrison and his wife suspected Riley wanted a sexual encounter with them. They both felt uncomfortable, but George’s trip was a watershed moment in his life.

Harrison said his first LSD trip changed his perspective on everything

His compatriots experienced scary moments during their acid trip (John and Cynthia believed a red light in an elevator was a raging fire), but George’s high bordered on being meditative. He somehow found the calm center and had a life-changing experience. In the end, he realized the novelty of being famous did nothing for him.

“I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass,” he once told Rolling Stone. “It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience in 12 hours.

“It was like opening the door, really, and before, you didn’t even know there was a door there. It just opened up this whole other consciousness.”

Harrison realized that his life could be different from the one he was living. He grew tired of fame, especially The Beatles’ hectic touring schedule from 1961 to 1966. The band eventually embraced finding the other consciousness George experienced once they quit touring in 1966. Ringo soon took LSD. Paul McCartney tried it later. Later albums, such as Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Magical Mystery Tour showed the group embracing drug culture in their music and appearance.

George Harrison and his wife, Pattie Boyd, avoided an orgy the night he first took LSD, and the guitarist stumbled onto a new perspective on life instead. 

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