No, Pattie didn’t, because George didn’t have a funeral – at least not in the traditional sense you’re (probably) thinking about.
George passed way in the early afternoon of 29th November 2001 in Los Angeles. Alongside him were his wife Olivia, son Dhani and two close Krishna friends Shayam Sundara and Mukunda, who were chanting quietly as George passed peacefully.
George had been told on or around the 14th November by his doctors that they didn’t think it likely he would live much longer than another month. George had made plans for what he wanted to happen after he died and a very short time afterward he’d passed, these were put into action.
In accordance with George’s spiritual beliefs and his personal wishes, his body was taken to a funeral home and cremated at around 10:30pm that night. Reports about the details differ. The Daily Mail reported that George had a cardboard coffin, that the cremation took place without a ceremony and then his ashes were given to his family. Other stories (and stories I think are actually more likely) report that George had a simple, plain wood coffin and that there were rose petals sprinkled over it, as in a typical Krishna Consciousness funeral. There were no hymns but a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita was read out.
In line with George’s spiritual beliefs, his body was cremated as quickly as possible and then the ashes were taken to be scattered on a sacred river. And in line with his personal wishes, this was all done in the utmost privacy, before anyone outside of George’s immediate family and very close friends even knew he’d passed away. So as the world was first hearing the news on the morning of 30th November, George’s ashes had already been taken by plane to India where they were scattered on the holy Yamuna River, in a place where George had frequently visited and sought spiritual refuge.
So he didn’t have a funeral in the westernised sense of the word, but there have been many memorial events for George – memorial gardens, trees and woodland walks dedicated to his memory and of course, the Concert for George which took place on the first anniversary of his death.
“I burst into tears when I heard he had died; I felt completely bereft. I couldn’t bear the thought of a world without George. […] At the end I hadn’t grasped how ill he was as I hadn’t seen him for a few months. The last time had been at my cottage: he had phoned to say he was coming to Sussex to visit Ringo and Barbara and wanted to see me – I think he was curious to know where I was living. I was so glad we’d had that last meeting.
“I think I’ll miss George for the rest of my life.”
-Pattie Boyd, August 2007, Daily Mail