Paula Yates
Encyclopedia
Paula Elizabeth Yates was a British television presenter
Presenter
A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...

 and writer, best known for her work on two television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 programme
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

s, The Tube
The Tube (TV series)
The Tube was an innovative United Kingdom pop/rock music television programme, which ran for five seasons, from 5 November 1982 until 1987...

and The Big Breakfast
The Big Breakfast
The Big Breakfast was a British light entertainment television show shown on Channel 4 and S4C each weekday morning from 28 September 1992 until 29 March 2002 during which period 2,482 shows were produced. The Big Breakfast was produced by Planet 24, the production company co-owned by former...

.

Early life

Born in Colwyn Bay
Colwyn Bay
- Demography :Prior to local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974 Colwyn Bay was a municipal borough with a population of c.25,000, but in 1974 this designation disappeared leaving five separate parishes, known as communities in Wales, of which the one bearing the name Colwyn Bay encompassed...

, North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...

, she was brought up in a show business family. Her mother was Elaine Smith, a former showgirl, actress and writer of erotic novels, who used the stage names Helene Thornton and Heller Toren. Until late in her life, Yates believed her father to be Jess Yates
Jess Yates
Jess Yates was a British television presenter and producer...

, who was known as "the Bishop" and presented the ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 religious programme Stars On Sunday. Yates and Smith were married from 1958 to 1975, though Yates was 16 years older than his wife and their marriage was unconventional. Jess Yates was fired from his job in 1974 because of scandalous newspaper stories about his private life.

In an unsettled childhood, Yates attended school at Penrhos College, Ysgol Aberconwy
Ysgol Aberconwy
Ysgol Aberconwy is an English medium mixed comprehensive school on the North Wales coast. The school occupies a partly new, partly refurbished campus completed in 2005 situated directly onto the Conwy estuary and is two minutes from the A55 Expressway linking Chester to North Wales...

. The Yates family ran the Deganwy Castle Hotel for a time, before moving to a large house in Rowen, Conwy
Rowen, Conwy
Rowen is a small village on the western slopes of the Conwy valley in Conwy county borough, north Wales. It lies off the B5106 road, between Dolgarrog and Conwy....

. After the break-up of her parents' marriage in 1975, Yates lived mostly with her mother, including periods in Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

 and Mallorca
Mallorca
Majorca or Mallorca is an island located in the Mediterranean Sea, one of the Balearic Islands.The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Cabrera Archipelago is administratively grouped with Majorca...

 where she was a pupil at Bellver International College, before returning to Britain.

Career

Yates became a fan of The Boomtown Rats
The Boomtown Rats
The Boomtown Rats were an Irish punk rock band that had a series of Irish and UK hits between 1977 and 1985. They were led by vocalist Bob Geldof.-Biography:All six members were originally from Dún Laoghaire, Ireland...

 and their lead singer, Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof
Robert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...

, with whom she became involved and who fathered her first three daughters. She posed naked for Penthouse
Penthouse (magazine)
Penthouse, a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore. Penthouse is owned by FriendFinder Network. formerly known as General Media, Inc. whose parent company was Penthouse International...

in 1978, just before she became a music journalist, writing a column called "Natural Blonde" in the Record Mirror
Record Mirror
Record Mirror was a British weekly pop music newspaper, founded by Isadore Green and featured, news articles, interviews, record charts, record reviews, concert reviews, letters from readers and photographs. The paper became respected by both mainstream pop music fans and serious record collectors...

. She first came to prominence in the 1980s, as co-presenter (with Jools Holland
Jools Holland
Julian Miles "Jools" Holland OBE, DL is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer, and television presenter. He was a founder of the band Squeeze and his work has involved him with many artists including Sting, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, The Who, David Gilmour and Bono.Holland is a...

) of the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 pop music programme The Tube
The Tube (TV series)
The Tube was an innovative United Kingdom pop/rock music television programme, which ran for five seasons, from 5 November 1982 until 1987...

.
She also appeared alongside friend Jennifer Saunders
Jennifer Saunders
Jennifer Jane Saunders is an English comedienne, screenwriter, singer and actress. She has won two BAFTAs, an International Emmy Award, a British Comedy Award, a Rose d'Or Light Entertainment Festival Award, two Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards, and a Peoples Choice Award.She first came into...

 in 1987 for a spoof 'mockumentary' on Bananarama
Bananarama
Bananarama are an English female pop duo who have had success on the pop and dance charts since 1982. Rather than relying on a two part harmony, the duo generally sings in unison, as do their background vocalists. Although there have been line-up changes, the group enjoyed their most popular...

.

In 1982, she released a version of the Nancy Sinatra
Nancy Sinatra
Nancy Sandra Sinatra is an American singer and actress. She is the daughter of singer/actor Frank Sinatra, and remains best known for her 1966 signature hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"....

 hit song "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'
These Boots Are Made for Walkin'
Jessica Simpson recorded her own version of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" for the soundtrack to the film The Dukes of Hazzard . Simpson's cover was co-produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and was released as the soundtrack's first single in 2005)...

".

After the birth of her daughters, Yates wrote two books on motherhood.

Yates continued with her rock journalism, in addition to being presenter of the cutting-edge music show The Tube
The Tube (TV series)
The Tube was an innovative United Kingdom pop/rock music television programme, which ran for five seasons, from 5 November 1982 until 1987...

. She became most notorious for her "on the bed" interviews on the show The Big Breakfast
The Big Breakfast
The Big Breakfast was a British light entertainment television show shown on Channel 4 and S4C each weekday morning from 28 September 1992 until 29 March 2002 during which period 2,482 shows were produced. The Big Breakfast was produced by Planet 24, the production company co-owned by former...

, produced by Geldof. On 27 October 1995 Yates appeared on the quiz programme Have I Got News For You
Have I Got News for You
Have I Got News for You is a British television panel show produced by Hat Trick Productions for the BBC. It is based loosely on the BBC Radio 4 show The News Quiz, and has been broadcast since 1990, currently the BBC's longest-ever running television panel show...

and repeatedly clashed with Ian Hislop
Ian Hislop
Ian David Hislop is a British journalist, satirist, comedian, writer, broadcaster and editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye...

. Yates referred to Hislop as being "the sperm of the devil".

Personal life

Yates met Geldof in the early days of The Boomtown Rats
The Boomtown Rats
The Boomtown Rats were an Irish punk rock band that had a series of Irish and UK hits between 1977 and 1985. They were led by vocalist Bob Geldof.-Biography:All six members were originally from Dún Laoghaire, Ireland...

. 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
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...

, with Simon Le Bon
Simon Le Bon
Simon John Charles Le Bon is an English musician, best known as the lead singer, lyricist and musician of the band Duran Duran and its offshoot, Arcadia.-Early life:...

 of Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...

 acting as Geldof's best man. The couple then had two more daughters, Peaches Geldof
Peaches Geldof
Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof is a British journalist, television presenter and model.-Background:Geldof was born in London in 1989, the second daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates. She is the granddaughter of Hughie Green. Her sisters are Fifi Trixibelle Geldof and Pixie Geldof...

  on 13 March 1989, and Pixie Geldof
Pixie Geldof
Little Pixie Geldof is a British model and socialite, most recently modelling for Debenhams.She is the youngest daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates. Her sisters are Fifi Trixibelle Geldof and Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof...

 on 17 September 1990.

Yates first met Michael Hutchence
Michael Hutchence
Michael Kelland John Hutchence was an Australian musician and actor. He was the founding lead singer-songwriter of rock band :INXS from 1977 to his death in 1997, a period of twenty years. Hutchence was a member of short-lived pop rock group Max Q and recorded solo material which was released...

 in a 1985 interview on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

's rock magazine programme The Tube. Recalling that meeting for The Best of the Tube, Yates said that she had essentially interviewed Hutchence's crotch and he had invited her back to his hotel room, adding that she'd replied, "Michael, I have a baby." In the same edition, she stated that she and Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox, OBE , born Ann Lennox, is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving minor success in the late 1970s with The Tourists, with fellow musician David A...

 had "skated across" a lesbian relationship during the period when they lived together in "a hippy commune", shortly before her marriage to Geldof.

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 doggedly 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. Two months later 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
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

. 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
Bob Geldof
Robert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...

 had threatened them repeatedly with, "Don't forget, I am above the law". Yates became distraught, refusing to accept the Coroner
Coroner
A coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...

's verdict of suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

. She eventually sought psychiatric
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

 treatment.

In June 1998, Bob Geldof won full custody of the couple's three daughters and Yates attempted suicide. Michael Hutchence's father, Kell Hutchence, "launched proceedings in Australia seeking sole custody of [Tiger Lily] 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 battling grief and problems with addiction, she was also in an extremely difficult financial situation. Yates resorted to selling her jewellery in order to pay bills, including the three amethyst
Amethyst
Amethyst is a violet variety of quartz often used in jewelry. The name comes from the Ancient Greek ἀ a- and μέθυστος methustos , a reference to the belief that the stone protected its owner from drunkenness; the ancient Greeks and Romans wore amethyst and made drinking vessels of it in the belief...

 rings Geldof gave her after the birth of each of their daughters. She downsized to living in a small mews house in the years prior to her death, but also purchased a second home in Hastings
Hastings
Hastings is a town and borough in the county of East Sussex on the south coast of England. The town is located east of the county town of Lewes and south east of London, and has an estimated population of 86,900....

.

While Yates was fighting for custody of Tiger, it was reported in the media that Jess Yates
Jess Yates
Jess Yates was a British television presenter and producer...

 had not been Yates's natural father. A paternity test proved that the quiz show
Quiz Show
Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film produced and directed by Robert Redford. Adapted by Paul Attanasio from Richard Goodwin's memoir Remembering America, the film is based upon the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s...

 host Hughie Green
Hughie Green
Hughie Green was the host of numerous British television shows.-Early life:Hugh H. Green was born in London; his Scottish father was a former British Army Major who made his fortune supplying tinned fish to the Allied forces in World War I, while his mother Violet was the Surrey-born daughter of...

, 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
Rupert Everett
Rupert James Hector Everett is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981, when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film Another Country as an openly gay student at an English public school, set in the 1930s...

 wrote that he had a six-year affair with Yates.

Death

On 17 September 2000, her daughter Pixie's 10th birthday, Yates, 41, was found dead at her home in London of an accidental heroin overdose
Drug overdose
The term drug overdose describes the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities greater than are recommended or generally practiced...

. The coroner ruled that it was not a suicide, but a result of "foolish and incautious" behaviour.

Soon after her death, ex-husband Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof
Robert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...

 assumed a foster custody of Tiger Lily with the willing consent of Hutchence's parents, so that she could be raised with her three older half-sisters, Fifi, Peaches
Peaches Geldof
Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof is a British journalist, television presenter and model.-Background:Geldof was born in London in 1989, the second daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates. She is the granddaughter of Hughie Green. Her sisters are Fifi Trixibelle Geldof and Pixie Geldof...

 and Pixie
Pixie Geldof
Little Pixie Geldof is a British model and socialite, most recently modelling for Debenhams.She is the youngest daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates. Her sisters are Fifi Trixibelle Geldof and Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof...

. Her aunt, Tina Hutchence, the sister of INXS singer Michael Hutchence, was denied permission by the judge to apply for Tiger Lily to live with her in California.

In 2007, Geldof further applied to a British court for and was granted formal adoption of Tiger Lily and a change of her surname to Geldof, despite vocal opposition from Hutchence's mother and sister. Since January 2008 her legal full name has been Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily Hutchence Geldof.

Books

Paula Yates was the author of several books, including:
  • Rock Stars in Their Underpants (1980)
  • A Tail of Two Kitties (1983)
  • Blondes (1983)
  • Sex with Paula Yates (1986)
  • The Fun Starts Here (1990)
  • The Fun Don't Stop: Loads of Rip-roaring Activities for You and Your Toddler (1991)
  • And the Fun Goes On: A Practical Guide to Playing and Learning with Your Pre-school Child (1991)
  • Village People (1993)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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