Paula Yates was one of the most famous British women in the 1980s and ‘90s. The television presenter and author was a popular figure across two decades, and was rarely out of the public eye.
But she also endured intense attention and scrutiny from the tabloid press, due to her popularity and her relationships with well-known musicians. After a succesful media career, her life was tragically cut short at the age of 41.
Now, Channel 4 has released a documentary exploring Yates’ life and tragic death, and asking what her story says about women in the public eye. Simply titled Paula, the two-part series looks back at her life and career, and highlights the frequent and often negative scrutiny endured in the press.
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The documentary includes interviews with friends of the TV star, archive footage and never-before-seen interviews with Yates herself.
Who was Paula Yates and what happened to her?
Born in 1959 in the Welsh seaside town of Colwyn Bay, Yates began a career as a music journalist in 1979 writing for the Record Mirror. But she became best known in the 1980s as a co-presenter on Channel 4 music show The Tube, alongside Jools Holland.
She later appeared as a regular interviewer on morning show The Big Breakfast, where she famously interviewed celebrities whilst lying on a bed. In 1986, Yates married Live Aid founder Bob Geldof in Las Vegas after a 10-year relationship.
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The couple met in 1976 in the early days of Geldof’s band The Boomtown Rats. They had three daughters, Fifi, born in 1983, Peaches, born in 1989, and Pixie, born in 1990.
But their marriage fell apart in 1995 and they divorced the following year. Yates had been having an affair with INXS singer Michael Hutchence, whom she first met while interviewing him on The Tube in 1985.
She stayed in touch with the Australian singer throughout the next decade, and she interviewed him again in 1994 on The Big Breakfast. The British press revealed that the pair had been having an affair before this interview.
In 1996, Yates gave birth to her daughter with Hutchence, Tiger Lily, but the following year, he was found dead in a Sydney hotel room, having hanged himself. Yates claimed he was afraid of not being able to have a relationship with his daughter.
The BBC reported that shortly after Hutchence’s death, Yates said she felt “almost like I don’t exist,” adding: “I’m broken, I don’t have any fight.” She said she had contemplated suicide every day but knew she had to be there for her children.
Less than a month later, in December 1997, the tabloids reported that Yates’ father Jess Yates was not her biological father. A paternity test showed that TV presenter Hughie Green – who had died in May of that year – was in fact her biological father.
In June 1998, she lost custody of her daughters after she was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic following a bout of depression and an apparent suicide bid. Yates died on September 17, 2000, on her daughter Pixie’s tenth birthday.
Aged just 41, the former TV star died of a heroin overdose in her home in Notting Hill, west London. The coroner ruled that she had not committed suicide but her death was the result of “an unsophisticated taker of heroin” using drugs, the BBC reported.
Her close friend Belinda Brewin claimed Yates had not taken illegal drugs for nearly two years, but had started again the day before she died. Geldof later assumed foster custody of Tiger Lily so she could be raised with her three half-sisters.
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