Melia McEnery is a socialite and philanthropist from the United States who is best known as the second wife of Eric Clapton, the famed English rock and blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter.
Eric Clapton is the only Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member who has been inducted three times. Melia is intimately affiliated with the Antigua Island’s Crossroads Centre, a medical facility dedicated to assisting substance abusers in their recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. Eric Clapton created the band in 1998. She is also a board member for several other children’s organizations.
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Table of Contents
Early Life And Career
Melia McEnery was born in Columbus, Ohio. From her father’s side, she is Scottish-English, and from her mother’s side, she is Korean-Irish. She is one of five siblings. Walter, her father, worked in construction, and her mother was a stay-at-home mom. Her parents have only one child. Bishop Watterson High School was Melia’s alma mater.
Melia McEnery, who moved to California after finishing her schooling, worked various jobs to make ends meet for the first few years. She was the hostess of an Armani-hosted party. She prefers to avoid the spotlight, despite the prominence and unwelcome attention she has received from the media since she began dating Clapton.
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Relationship
Melia McEnery, then 22, met singer Eric Clapton, 53 at the time, at an Armani-hosted party in Columbus, Ohio in 1999. Following his performance, a party was thrown in his honor. Despite having been told not to mingle with the guests, she approached him to ask for an autograph for her uncle. While Eric Clapton had a reputation for being a womanizer, he later admitted to the press that he was captivated by her right away and was determined to treat her with respect from the start.
Their initial meeting went far beyond the basic introduction, as the two got genuinely interested in each other, prompting them to go out on a dinner date right away. Despite their significant age difference of 31 years, the couple started dating right away.
She was in a long-term relationship with a coffee shop worker named Chris Losinske at the time, but she dumped him to be with Eric Clapton, according to media accounts. In an interview, her ex-boyfriend said he believed her when she said she and Captain were good friends, but he enticed her away with limos. They had, incidentally, split up after a year of dating, apparently owing to the rigors of his job.
However, in the late 2000s, word got out that the two had reconciled and were expecting their first child. On June 13, 2001, she gave birth to their first daughter, Julie Rose, who was named in honor of his late grandmother. Eric Clapton proposed to Melia McEnery on Father’s Day, June 17, 2001, at her family’s home in Columbus, Ohio. The couple married on January 1st, 2002, in a low-key church wedding at the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene in Ripley, Surrey, Clapton’s birthplace. The guests were unaware that they were attending the christening of their six-month-old daughter Julie.
Ruth Kelly Clapton, Clapton’s 16-year-old out-of-wedlock kid from his connection with Yvonne Kelly, the manager of AIR Studios, was also baptized at the same ceremony.
After his two kids were baptized, Eric Clapton and Melia McEnery exchanged wedding vows in front of the clergyman and visitors. Clapton married Pattie Boyd, an English model, and photographer, from March 1979 to June 1989. This marriage resulted in him having no children. Ruth Kelly, his first daughter, was born in 1985, while he was still married to Boyd. Soon after, he had another relationship with Italian model Lory Del Santo, with whom he had his only son, Conor, on August 21, 1986.
Conor died at the age of four and a half years after slipping out of an open bedroom window on the 53rd story of a Manhattan apartment building by accident. Ella May, born on January 14, 2003, and Sophie Belle, born on February 1st, 2005, are Clapton and McEnery’s, kids.
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Who Is Eric Clapton?
Eric Patrick Clapton CBE is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and composer who is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time. He was named second on Rolling Stone‘s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list and fourth on Gibson’s “Top 50 Guitarists of All Time” list. In 2009, he was ranked fifth among “The Ten Best Electric Guitar Players” by Time magazine.
His Early Life
Eric Clapton was born Eric Patrick Clapton in Ripley, Surrey, England on March 30, 1945. His mother, Patricia, was 16 years old at the time of his birth, and his father, Edward, was a 24-year-old Canadian soldier whom Eric had never met. Clapton was informed as a child that Patricia was his sister and that Eric’s parents were his mother and stepfather. Patricia married and relocated to Germany later in life.
Eric Clapton was left with his grandparents in England. Eric learned to play guitar as a youngster after receiving one as a birthday present, and his abilities were so outstanding that by the age of 16, he was performing in bars with fellow musician Dave Brock. At the age of 17, he joined the Roosters, a British R&B group, and stayed with them until August 1963, when he joined Casey Jones & the Engineers. Clapton attended Kingston College of Art for one year before being expelled.
He founded Blind Faith with Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech the next year, but the band barely lasted seven months. Clapton subsequently founded Derek and the Dominos, releasing “Layla” in 1970, which would go on to become one of his most popular songs; the band disintegrated in 1971 while recording their second album.
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Career
Eric joined the Yardbirds in October 1963 and stayed with them until March 1965, leaving on the day the band’s first big single, “For Your Love,” was released. He joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers in April 1965, departed a few months later, returned in November, and then left again in July 1966. Eric joined Cream after leaving the Bluesbreakers, and with them, he released six albums and several hit singles, including “Sunshine of Your Love” and “White Room,” until the band disintegrated in 1968. He founded Blind Faith with Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech the next year, but the band barely lasted seven months.
Derek and the Dominos were created by Eric Clapton in 1970, and released “Layla,” which would become one of his most popular songs; the group disbanded in 1971 while producing their second album.
Eric formed a touring band and recorded “461 Ocean Boulevard” in 1974, which featured his first #1 hit, a rendition of Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff.” In 1982, he took a sabbatical from music to attend treatment, and a few months after his release, he began working on the album ” Money and Cigarettes.” Clapton began writing film music in the 1980s and won a BAFTA Award for his work on the 1985 film “Edge of Darkness.”
He was nominated for nine Grammy Awards in 1992, winning six of them (Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, Best Rock Vocal Performance, Male, and Best Rock Song), and releasing the “Unplugged” album, which was certified Diamond after selling 10 million copies.
In 2000, Eric released “Riding with the King,” a collaboration with blues great B.B. King that charted at #1 on the US Top Blues Albums chart and #3 on the “Billboard” 200; the album also received a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album.
Eric Clapton has performed over 3,000 concerts in nearly 60 countries during his long career, and despite retiring from worldwide touring in 2015, he continues to make new music, and he recently celebrated his 70th birthday with shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City and the Royal Albert Hall in London.
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Personal Life
On March 27, 1979, Eric married Pattie Boyd, who had previously been married to his friend George Harrison, and the couple separated in 1989. Clapton admitted to abusing Boyd and fathering two children with other women during their marriage: Ruth was born in 1985, and Conor was born in 1986. Conor, a 4-year-old boy, died on March 20, 1991, after falling out of an open window in a 53rd-floor apartment; Eric created a song about the tragedy called “Tears in Heaven.” Eric Clapton married Melia McEnery on January 1, 2002, and the couple has three daughters: Julie, Ella, and Sophie.
Eric Clapton began an almost two-decade battle with drinking and drug addiction in the early 1970s, claiming to spend $16,000 each week on heroin. He has been sober since 1987 and founded the Crossroads Centre, a substance abuse treatment facility on the island of Antigua, in 1998. Eric also served on the boards of directors at Clouds House (1993–1997) and The Chemical Dependency Centre (1994–1999), both treatment clinics. Clapton was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy in 2013, which causes him discomfort in his legs and back, as well as tinnitus.
