Melia McEnery - Eric Clapton’s Wife, Timeline and Life

Melia McEnery, who came to California after completing her education, managed to get odd jobs to pay her bills during the first couple years. Her luck changed after she got the job of an assistant in the design department for Armani. At that position, apart from her general administrative tasks, she was also responsible for planning and hosting events, as well as sending out designs to the work sites. It was her job at Armani that eventually paved the way for her meeting with Eric Clapton. Despite the fame and unwanted attention she gained from the media since she began dating Clapton, she prefers to stay away from the limelight.

Melia McEnery was born on February 1st, 1976, in Columbus, Ohio, United States. She is of Scottish-English descent from her father's side and has Korean-Irish heritage from her father's side. Her father Walter worked in construction, while her mother was a homemaker. She is the only child of her parents. Melia attended Bishop Watterson High School and later completed her graduation with a bachelor's degree in arts.

A 22-year-old Melia McEnery met musician Eric Clapton, who was 53 at the time, at a party in Columbus, Ohio that she had organized herself for her bosses at Armani, in 1999. The party was thrown in honor of Clapton after his performance was over. She reportedly had strict orders not to interact with the guests, but she still went up to him to ask for an autograph for her uncle. While Clapton had a reputation as a womanizer, he later told the media that he was immediately drawn to her and was determined to act like a gentleman from the first moment. Their meeting went well past the brief introduction as the two became genuinely interested in each other, which prompted them to go out on a dinner date immediately after their first meeting. Despite their huge 31-year age gap, the couple soon began dating officially.

According to media reports, she was involved in a long-term relationship with a coffee shop worker named Chris Losinske at the time, but ditched him to be with Clapton. Her ex-boyfriend told in an interview that he had trusted her words that she and Capton were good friends, but he lured her away by sending limos. Incidentally, they had briefly broken up after one year of dating, reportedly due to the stresses of his career. However, in late 2000, reports spread that the two had got back together and that they were expecting their first child. She gave birth to their first daughter, Julie Rose, named on the memory of his late grandmother, on June 13, 2001. Within a week, on June 17, 2001, Clapton proposed to McEnery at her family home in Columbus, Ohio on the occasion of Father's Day. The couple subsequently tied the knot at a low-key church ceremony on January 1st, 2002 at the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene in Ripley, Surrey, which was Clapton's birthplace. Interestingly, the guests knew that they were attending the christening ceremony of their six-month old daughter Julie. At the same ceremony, Clapton's 16-year-old out-of-wedlock child Ruth Kelly Clapton, his daughter from his relationship with Yvonne Kelly, the manager of AIR Studios, was also baptized.

Eric Clapton and Melia McEnery two exchanged their wedding vows in front of the vicar and the guests after his two daughters were baptized. Clapton was previously married to English model and photographer Pattie Boyd from March 1979 to June 1989, but failed to have children together. It was in 1985, when he was still married to Boyd, when his first daughter Ruth Kelly was born. He also had another affair soon after, with Italian model Lory Del Santo, who gave birth to his only son, Conor, on August 21, 1986. Unfortunately, Conor died at the age of four-and-a-half years after accidentally falling off an open bedroom window on the 53rd floor of a Manhattan apartment building. Clapton and McEnery later welcomed two more daughters, Ella May, born on January 14, 2003, and Sophie Belle, born on February 1st, 2005.