The tragic last promise Eric Clapton made to his son before
Eric Clapton’s Heartbreaking Loss
Eric Clapton, 79, suffered an unimaginable tragedy when his 4-year-old son Conor died in a freak accident.
The Fatal Day
On March 20, 1991, Conor fell from a 53rd-floor Manhattan apartment after a housekeeper left a window unlatched.
“If I hadn’t checked the fax, he’d still be alive,” Clapton said, recalling how a brief delay kept him from arriving in time.
Lory Del Santo remembered, “When I told Eric, he froze. He didn’t say a word.”
A Promise Broken
Just a day earlier, Clapton had taken Conor to the circus for their first day out alone.
“That sawdust-scented afternoon showed him what he’d been missing,” biographer Philip Norman wrote.
Clapton had promised a Bronx Zoo trip the next day —
a promise tragedy erased.
Grief and Music
Crushed, Clapton withdrew to Antigua for nearly a year, writing songs to cope.
“All I could do was play and write these songs over and over,” he said.
From this pain came Tears in Heaven, a tribute to his son.
