Personal Life
Yates met Geldof in the early days of The Boomtown Rats. They became a couple in 1976 when she flew to Paris to surprise him while the band was playing there. Their first daughter, Fifi Trixibelle, was born on 31 March 1983, named Fifi after Bob's aunt Fifi and Trixibelle because Paula wanted a belle in the family. After 10 years together, they married on 31 August 1986 in Las Vegas, with Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran acting as Geldof's best man. The couple then had two more daughters, Peaches Geldof on 13 March 1989, and Pixie Geldof on 17 September 1990.
Yates first met Michael Hutchence in a 1985 interview on Channel 4's rock magazine programme The Tube.
During this appearance on The Tube, Yates was reportedly asked to leave Hutchence alone by the road manager of INXS when Paula walked up to him and said, "I'm going to have that boy." "Paula was unmoved and began to show up at INXS gigs everywhere for the next few years...she even brought her daughter (Fifi Geldof)." Yates maintained an irregular contact during the intervening nine years and their affair had been underway long before the Big Breakfast interview. In 1995, Yates left Geldof.
Geldof and Yates divorced in May 1996. Yates's daughter with Hutchence, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence (known as 'Tiger') was born on 22 July 1996.
On 22 November 1997, Hutchence was found dead in a hotel room in Sydney. Paula Yates wrote in her police statement that Michael Hutchence was "frightened and couldn't stand a minute more without his baby". During their phone conversations on the morning of his suicide he had said, "I don't know how I'll live without Tiger". Yates also wrote that Bob Geldof had threatened them repeatedly with, "Don't forget, I am above the law". Yates became distraught, refusing to accept the coroner's verdict of suicide. She eventually sought psychiatric treatment.
In June 1998, Bob Geldof won full custody of the couple's three daughters after Yates attempted suicide. Michael Hutchence's father, Kell Hutchence, "launched proceedings in Australia seeking sole custody of after concerns over a new relationship Miss Yates began while being treated at a clinic for a nervous breakdown earlier this year." She met Kingsley O'Keke, 26, during her stay but the pair broke up after a six-week romance. O'Keke later sold his story to a tabloid newspaper.
Yates's dispute with the Hutchence family over Michael's estate saw her struggling to bring up her daughter.
While Yates was fighting for custody of Tiger, it was reported in the media that Jess Yates had not been Yates's natural father. A paternity test proved that the talent show host Hughie Green, who died six months before Hutchence, had in fact been her natural father.
In his memoir Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins (2006), actor Rupert Everett wrote that he had a six-year affair with Yates.
Read more about this topic: Paula Yates
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