Many people are aware that Eric Clapton, 79, suffered a devastating loss when his young son died in a tragic freak accident.
However, few may know that the artist made one tragic final promise to his 4-year-old boy.
”If I hadn’t checked the fax, he’d still be alive”
Eric Clapton’s life was forever changed by a devastating tragedy when his four-year-old son, Conor, died in a horrific accident on March 20, 1991.
Conor was in New York with his mother, Italian actress Lory Del Santo, when he fell from a 53rd-floor apartment window in Manhattan. A housekeeper had just finished cleaning when Conor ran past an open window that had been left unlatched — and in a heartbreaking instant, he fell to his death.
“The window had been left open. Eric was on his way to pick Conor up,” Lory said.
“I heard the fax machine and checked it out before going to check on Conor. I walked in just a fraction of a minute too late. He had gone. If I hadn’t checked the fax, he’d still be alive.”
Conor was just weeks away from his fifth birthday when his life ended in one of the most heartbreaking ways imaginable. Clapton, who was elsewhere in New York at the time, rushed to the scene as soon as he heard the news.
“When I told Eric what had happened, he froze solid. It was like he’d just stopped functioning. He didn’t say anything. It was all so unreal. When Conor died, the relationship between Eric and me died,” Lory said.
Purchased circus tickets
At the time of the tragedy, Eric Clapton and Lory Del Santo weren’t together. Lory had full custody of their son, and she and Conor traveled to New York to spend Easter with Clapton.
On March 19, the day before the tragedy, Clapton took Conor to the circus on Long Island — their first time spending a full day alone together.
Clapton had excitedly purchased circus tickets, looking forward to making special memories with his son —never realizing it would be their last day together.
”That sawdust-scented afternoon showed him what he’d been missing,” wrote biographer Philip Norman, author of Slowhand: The Life and Music of Eric Clapton.
”When they returned to the apartment, with Conor chattering excitedly about the clowns and elephants, Eric told Lory that, from now on, he intended to be a proper father.”
Clapton also had hopes of bringing both Conor and Del Santo to London to live with him. The rock star was looking ahead, eager to share more time with his son. He had promised him a trip to the Bronx Zoo the next day, followed by lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant. That morning, as Lory got ready and Conor played excitedly around the apartment, filled with the pure joy of a child, tragedy struck.
But sadly, tragedy struck.
Stepped away from the public eye
Devastated by grief, Clapton stepped away from the public eye. In the painful days following Conor’s death, Eric Clapton brought his son’s body home from New York, accompanied by Conor’s maternal family from Italy, to prepare for the funeral.
Conor was laid to rest in Clapton’s hometown of Ripley, a small village in Surrey, England. Located about 25 miles southwest of London, Ripley is where Clapton grew up and has remained a deeply personal place for him.
After the service, overwhelmed by grief, Clapton escaped to Antigua, renting a small cottage where he spent nearly a year in isolation. He described how he barely spoke to anyone, instead losing himself in music as a way to cope.
”When they left, I had this little Spanish string guitar, I became attached to that. I went off to Antigua and I rented a little cottage there in a community and I just swatted mosquitos all day and played this guitar and stayed there for almost a whole year, without much contact with the outside world, and I tried to heal myself,” he shared.
During that time, music became his refuge. He played and rewrote songs over and over, searching for some kind of emotional release. “All I could do was play and write these songs and I re-wrote and re-performed them again and again and again and again until I felt like I had made some sort of move towards the surface of my being and then I was able to come out,” Clapton recalled.
A letter from Conor
Eventually, he channeled his sorrow into music, co-writing Tears in Heaven with Will Jennings. The song, originally written for a film soundtrack, became one of his most emotional and personal works — a way to process his loss and keep Conor’s memory alive.
Amid this devastating loss, Clapton also received something that shattered him all over again — a letter from Conor. Just days before the accident, the little boy had written his first-ever letter to his father, with help from his mother, Lory Del Santo. The note had been mailed to Clapton’s London home and tragically arrived only after Conor’s death.
Lory remembered that heartbreaking moment vividly: ”The baby had learned to write a few words and he said to me, ‘Oh mummy, I want to write a letter to daddy, what shall I write?’ I told him, ‘Well, write, I love you.’ He wrote that and we posted it like a regular letter.
”After Conor died, Eric and I arrived in London for the funeral. I was there when Eric received his mail just after the funeral and he opened it up and it was Conor’s letter. That is a moment I cannot forget.”
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