Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence Geldof, now living a quiet life as a singer-songwriter in Western Australia, is again in the spotlight as a documentary about her famous parents aired in the UK this week.
On Britain’s Channel 4, the two-part documentary Paula retraces the life and death of her mother, UK television host and writer Paula Yates, and the death of her Australian father, INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, more than 20 years ago.
“I loved both of these people but they were a disaster together,” wrote one fan. But the hope of “finding some peace Down Under” for Tiger Lily might be difficult, as it will no doubt open old wounds for the 26-year-old, who calls Fremantle home.
Never-before-heard interviews
Tiger Hutchence Geldof (or Heavenly, as is her signature on songs), was just 16 months old when Hutchence, aged 37, was found dead in a Sydney hotel room in 1997.
She was orphaned three years later in 2000 when Paula, then 41, died from a drug overdose amid a custody battle with Boomtown Rats’ lead singer and Live Aid founder Bob Geldof (they had three children together).
The documentary, part of Channel 4’s 40th anniversary catalogue, airs never-before-heard interviews of Yates with the Sunday Express and OK! magazine editor Martin Townsend in the two years before she died.
There are also testimonies from friends and colleagues to give context to how this family tragedy unfolded.
Across two episodes, it traces her rise to fame on TV, the rock star partners and the intense public scrutiny. Episode two looks at her final years, the role of motherhood, the love affairs and the criticism she faced.
She reveals Hutchence’s reaction after Yates was not permitted to bring the girls to Australia after drugs were found in the home they shared.
“Bob decided against letting the girls go to Australia and so we had to go back into court, and then I couldn’t get to Australia unless I left my girls behind,” she told OK!.
“Michael hated to be away from us. Absolutely. Found it almost unbearable.
“And I think it was a crushing disappointment when I rang him and told him.
“And it’s funny because I left the court, and I turned to my barrister and I said, ‘This will kill Michael’.”
Produced by the same team who gave us Caroline Flack: Her Life and Death and Reclaiming Amy, about Amy Winehouse, Yates and Hutchence dominated the headlines in the late 1990s.
Yates was a Channel 4 star, fronting shows including The Tube and The Big Breakfast and interviewing celebrities ranging from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Robbie Williams.
Hutchence founded rock band INXS, which went on to achieve worldwide success, selling more than 75 million records. He was dubbed the wild man of rock for being romantically linked to Kylie Minogue, Belinda Carlisle, Helena Christensen and Kym Wilson.
World’s most famous orphan
Tiger Lily was four years old when she found Yates unresponsive in her London home, phoning one of her mother’s friends to alert her.
Geldof became her legal guardian and officially adopted her in 2007 and she was raised with her half-sisters Fifi, now 39, Peaches (who died of a heroin overdose in 2014), and Pixie, 32.
The West Australian reported she finished school, went to college in New York and returned to London and studied for a degree at Goldsmiths College in south-east London.
She graduated in 2019 and decided to move to Australia, “where she has been privately reclaiming her Hutchence lineage, reconnecting with his friends and family”, including fellow INXS band members, according to the paper.
As for financial security from Hutchence’s estate?
“She was meant to get three lump sums, each of $22 million, from Hutchence’s estate when she turned 18, 21, and 25,” it wrote.
Australian filmmaker Richard Lowenstein, who made the documentary Mystify: Michael Hutchence, spoke on Mamamia’s No Filter podcast in 2019.
“She has her very own personal way of dealing [with loss],” Lowenstein said, on Tiger Lily losing her mother and father at a young age.
“When she did look at the rough cut of the film, she got very emotionally involved in it largely because there was a whole side to Michael she’d never heard of.
“I think she was incredibly thankful that in one easy-to-digest package, there was a whole lot of stuff about her dad that she felt now she could connect with, including his music.
“The one thing she is, I believe, quite disturbed about is that there doesn’t seem to be any legal acknowledgement or even financial acknowledgment that she is her father’s daughter.
“The entire estate has vanished.”
Lowenstein did acquire one of her father’s acoustic guitars, which he gave her.
‘No interest in becoming famous’
Enjoying a low-key lifestyle full of surfing and yoga, Tiger Lily was until recently in a relationship with the former bassist of Fremantle band Tame Impala, Nick Allbrook.
She has been enjoying “the alternative-folk music scene locally”, performing with friends at bars including East Perth venue Barbes and Fremantle Navy Club.
According to a feature in this week’s Woman’s Day magazine, Why Tiger Lily Vanished, an insider said she “has no interest in becoming famous like her parents were”.
“Even though she’s a singer, it’s more a hobby for her than a career.
“The world is full of regular reminders that she would never want any part in Michael or Paula’s world.”
‘Living closer to nature’
She has fewer than 1000 followers on Instagram and in February last year released her 11-track digital debut album, Tragic Tiger’s Sad Meltdown, a tongue-in-cheek humorous dig at a New Idea headline from years earlier.
“I made this cassette in the living room of our house in Fremantle … I had always been shy to sing with others but moving across the world and my ex-boyfriend Nick had given me some bravery,” she wrote on Bandcamp.
“Something about living closer to nature meant I felt creative and open hearted. It was as if the wide open landscape of Australia had finally given my heart enough space to open properly,” she wrote.
“The recordings are actually just recordings of our rehearsals. I never feel set in how song is meant to be so they usually just come out of me in the moment.
“It was really moving to create with so much freedom and understanding. Most of the songs are about my sister Peaches, who I lost as a teenager, so singing them aloud felt very potent but my band always made me feel held.”
However, as Lowenstein noted after she watched his 2019 documentary: “She did say after viewing the film, ‘I’d prefer not to do that again’, because it does bring up not just emotions about her dad, but that story brought a lot of changes into her life.
“Although it brought her into being, it came with a whole lot of repercussions.”
