Content Warning: This article touches on the topic of suicide which may be triggering for some readers.
The story of the doomed romance between INXS rocker Michael Hutchence and TV host Paula Yates is one that ended in great tragedy for all involved.
WATCH: The official trailer for Mystify Michael Hutchence.
The lovers’ tumultuous relationship and respective deaths would go on to have a devastating rippling effect that would turn the world’s of many others upside down – including Paula’s own children.
What’s most crushing about the way both Michael and Paula’s lives ended is that, for many, it wasn’t unexpected.
Both had a history of self-indulgence and self-destruction, and it was this deadly combination that would eventually spell the end of both their lives.
We take a look back at Michael Hutchence and Paula Yates’ doomed romance more than two decades after both met their tragic ends.
How did Michael Hutchence and Paula Yates meet?
The pair first met in 1985, when Paula interviewed Michael for her show, The Tube.
Speaking of their first meeting, Paula recalled that the curly-haired bad boy – who had dated a bevvy of beautiful women, such as Australia’s own Kylie Minogue – “was so heartbreakingly beautiful it made me feel quite feeble.”
Years later in 1994, the pair would meet again when Michael appeared in a sexually-charged interview on Paula’s new show, Big Breakfast, which took place on a cow-print bed.
“For the first time, this is a guest I want to have my leg over,” Paula remarked on-air as she suggestively tangled her legs around Michael.
According to Richard Lowenstein, who created the documentary Mystify: Michael Hutchence, the rock star quickly fell for Paula – despite being in a relationship with Danish model Helena Christensen at the time.
“He fell for Paula, he fell for her daughters, he fell for her family,” Richard said. “That in itself is a huge tumultuous tabloid media event because of the sanctification of Bob [Geldof]”
WATCH: Musician Nicholas Allbrook shares rare footage of his girlfriend, Tiger Lily Hutchence.
Four months after their infamous interview, Paula officially left her husband of 18 years, Bob Geldof, for the INXS frontman.
Did Michael Hutchence and Paula Yates have any children?
Before meeting Michael, Paula had three daughters – Fifi, Peaches, and Pixie – with legendary Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof.
After leaving Bob for Michael, Paula went on to give birth to the rocker’s only child and light of his life, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence – or simply Tiger Lily – on July 22, 1996.
How did Michael Hutchence die?
On November 22, 1997, in room 524 at Double Bay’s Ritz Carlton Hotel, Michael Hutchence was found dead.
NSW State Coroner Derrick Hand later ruled that the charismatic frontman died by suicide by hanging while depressed and under the influence of drink and drugs.
But Michael’s anguished lover Paula had always insisted he died by accident when an autoerotic asphyxiation sex game went horribly wrong.
However, Michael’s half-sister Tina has said that in the days before his death, the 37-year-old star was desperate to have his young daughter with him in Australia.
Tina says even now, she is still angry with Paula for how she treated Michael.
“He had a traumatic brain injury and was being pushed to the limit with paparazzi, with Paula calling them and saying, ‘This is where we’ll be.’ I mean, really?” Tina said.
“All he was asking for [was to be with Tiger Lily]. Paula already had the tickets for the Qantas flight for her and Tiger Lily. She was supposed to leave the next night.
“Not only did he not see his child for that Christmas, he did not see Christmas at all.”
How did Paula Yates die?
Following Michael’s death, Paula began to spiral – and just three years later, she would be found dead in her home in Notting Hill, West London, from a heroin overdose as a four-year-old Tiger Lily played alone in the house.
Friends believed the grief of Michael’s death had further pushed the TV host into hard drugs – something she had largely veered away from in her earlier years.
“All things were good with Bob and Paula before her death. He was desperate to keep her away from her so-called friends and the destructive influences,” friend and former publicist Gerry Agar explained.
“She never drank or took drugs before she ran off with Michael,” she added. “She dabbled when she was extremely young, but after that nothing. Then she completely changed.”
WATCH: Paula Yates talks about motherhood.
This was also compounded by the trauma of discovering just one month later that her real father had actually been Opportunity Knocks host Hughie Green — who had died that year — not Jess Yates, the man she had believed to be her father and who died in 1993.
“I’m horrified. I thought I was at the darkest point – now this,” Paula said at the time.
Paula’s lifeless body was discovered on September 17, 2000 – on daughter Pixie’s tenth birthday – after friend Jo Fairley came to her home after attempting to contact Paula at that morning.
At 8.30 am, Jo called the house, but instead of Paula, four-year-old Tiger answered, saying her mum was still asleep.
Sensing something was wrong after she called later to the same response, Jo entered Paula’s home – after Tiger Lily stood on a chair to let her in – to find Paula dead in her room with heroin on the bedside table.
The coroner ruled Paula’s death not as a suicide but the result of “foolish” behaviour.
Gerry added: “I believe her death was definitely accidental. She would never have killed herself while Tiger was in her house. It was a massive mistake on her part. She took the amount (of drugs) she had been used to.”
What happened to Paula Yates’ children?
Following the death of both her mother and father, an orphaned Tiger Lily was adopted by Bob Geldof, where she went on to live a life out of the spotlight alongside half-sisters, Fifi Trixibelle, Pixie, and Peaches Geldof.
Tiger later moved to Fremantle to be with her Perth-based boyfriend at the time, Nick Allbrook – the frontman of psychedelic rock band Pond and former member of Tame Impala.
The two later broke up in April 2023 and Tiger began dating her current boyfriend, British model Ben Archer, in July 2023.
While the now-27-year-old has managed to avoid the turbulent lifestyle of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll that plagued her parents, it would be Paula and Bob Geldof’s daughter Peaches who would follow her mother’s tragic path as she, too, would overdose on heroin at the age of 25 in April 2014.
In yet another sad mirror to her own mother’s death, Peaches’ lifeless body was discovered among scattered drug paraphernalia at her Kent home as her young son Phaedra played in the house alone.
Peaches left behind a husband and her two young sons.
If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, help is always available. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit their website.
