Who was Paula Yates and how did she die?
AT ONE time Paula Yates looked like she had it all – fame, fortune, and a rock star husband.
But sadly her life was cut tragically short, leaving behind her grieving children.
Who was Paula Yates?
Born Paula Elizabeth Yates in Wales on April 24, 1959, she was a TV presenter and writer.
She was best known for her work on two television programmes, The Tube and The Big Breakfast.
Paula was brought up in a showbiz family, as her mother was Elaine Smith – a former showgirl actress and writer of erotic novels from Blackpool, who used the stage name Heller Toren.
Up until 1997, Paula believed her biological father to be Jess Yates, who hosted ITV’s Stars on Sunday.
However, a DNA test revealed that her biological father was game show host Hughie Green, who died before she could meet him.
Over the years, Paula became more known for her personal life, than her TV career.
After meeting Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof in 1976, they went onto wed in 1986.
They remained married until they split up in 1995, when she started a relationship with INXS singer Michael Hutchence.
The pair’s rock and roll life style took its toll, and Michael was found dead in a Sydney hotel room in 1997. He was 37.
Speaking in 20202 about the breakdown of his and Paula’s marriage, Bob told The Tommy Tiernan Show: “When Paula left me and it became almost impossible to live and I was kept going by some close friends, Pete briquettes from the Rats being one of them.
“I remember a futile flight from some thing in Europe and I was going back to nothing because my home, my family and everyone I’d loved… had gone like that.
“And I really didn’t understand why I’d lost everything I took to be true.”
How did Paula Yates die?
On September 17 2000, on daughter Pixie’s 10th birthday, Paula was found dead at her home in Notting Hill at the age of 41 of a heroin overdose.
The coroner ruled that it was not a suicide, but a result of “foolish and incautious” behaviour.
Paula was discovered in the presence of her then-four-year-old daughter, Tiger Lily.
A friend disclosed during the inquest that the TV star had not taken illegal drugs for nearly two years, prior to her overdose.
The coroner, Paul Knapman, concluded that although the amount of heroin Paula had taken would not have killed an addict, “an unsophisticated taker of heroin” like her had no tolerance to the drug.
Did Paula Yates have any children?
Together with Bob, Geldof, Paula had three children – Fifi (born 1983), Peaches (born 1989), and Pixie (born 1990).
During her time with Michael, she also welcomed a child in 1996 called Tiger Lily.
Sadly, in a tragic parallel to her mother’s death, Peaches also died of a heroin overdose in 2014 when she was just 25.
Again speaking to The Tommy Tiernan Show about the grief he has felt at the untimely death of his daughter, dad Bob said: “Time doesn’t heal, time accommodates and it’s ever present.
“You’re driving along and you’re at the traffic lights and for no reason whatsoever, the person in question inhabits you and I’ll cry.”
Following both Michael and Paula’s deaths, Bob formally adopted Tiger Lily as his own daughter.