However, it was as co-host, with Jools Holland, of Channel 4's groundbreaking music show The Tube, in 1982 that Yates made her name. She was devastated when Hutchence was found hanged by his belt in a hotel room in Sydney in November 1997. She refused to accept the inquest verdict of suicide, insisting that Hutchence must have died when a sexual game of autoerotic asphyxiation went wrong. Meanwhile, following the startling public revelation of Yates's true paternity in May 1997, DNA tests confirmed that Hughie Green was her real father, although she had been conceived within weeks of her mother's marriage to Jess. As one friend observed at the time: "In the space of a month, Paula has lost her future, and her past."

I am sure her divorce from Bob Geldof was not pleasant, but she was already with someone else by that time so that would have softened the blow,'' he said. It was a stance - in which she used a television programme to plead her cause a la Diana - which dashed much of the public sympathy which followed the double blow of her lover's death and the revelation about her parentage. Later that year, while Yates and Hutchence were in Australia, the children's nannie found opium in a Smarties tube in their home. The couple claim the drugs were planted and Yates was arrested but not charged, but the incident allowed Geldof to return to court and win temporary custody of the children. On 22 November 1997, Hutchence was found dead in a hotel room in Sydney. The official verdict into his death said that he committed suicide by hanging. [21] Yates wrote in her police statement that 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 Geldof had threatened them repeatedly, saying: "Don't forget, I am above the law." [22] Yates became distraught, refusing to accept the coroner's verdict of suicide and insisting that it was a case of auto-erotic asphyxiation. [23] She eventually sought psychiatric treatment.Apart from writing the number one (in 12 countries) chart song "The Saints Are Coming" Richard has directed 6 movies and hosted the Film Show for MTV. He has met the great the good (and the bad) in Hollywood and the music industry. In 1992, she moved from night to daytime television, and began presenting Channel 4's Big Breakfast show, made by Geldof's production company, Planet 24. It was her speciality to conduct celebrity interviews from a bed, and it was there that she met the Australian musician Michael Hutchence, then lead singer with the band INXS, whom she described as "God's gift to women". In a blaze of tabloid publicity, she left Geldof for Hutchence a year later, and in 1996, amidst an even bigger blaze of tabloid publicity, the couple were divorced. Yates, battling mental health and addiction issues, sought psychiatric treatment following the death of Hutchence which resulted in her ex-husband Geldof securing full custody of the couple’s three daughters. “When Michael died I was tipped over the edge,” Yates once said. “I was beyond grief.” Devastatingly, just a couple of years later, on her daughter Pixie’s 10th birthday, some 20 years ago today, Yates died at her home in London of an accidental heroin overdose on September 17, 2000. Brewin recalls arriving at Yates’s house one day and finding Martin Bashir, the BBC presenter whose 1995 Panorama interview with Princess Diana was later found by an inquiry to have been obtained in a “deceitful” way. “[He was] saying she needed consoling,” says Brewin. “She was distraught after Michael had died… and there was [Martin] cooking food [in her house].” Brewin says that she told Bashir to get out. “He said, ‘Oh no, she needs looking after.’”

NOTE* Special 'Story Of The Skids' Book Launch) SOLD OUT! BUT- extra signings are also now at 3pm-5pm Evans, Martin (31 October 2000). "Suicide threats of Paula Yates 'drove Hutchence to kill himself' ". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 10 August 2011 . Retrieved 22 May 2010. But it is her indomitable spirit that people remember, and her wholeheartedness in life and love. Paula Yates was a survivor. In a magazine interview last year, she said: "It's only the mothering instinct that makes you willing to suffer every day. I know it sounds like a Victorian novel, but it's true. Right now, I still think living is a noble gesture." The news that former TV favourite Hughie Green, below, had fathered her would also have taken its toll, said Dr Sheppard. Yeates, Cydney (13 March 2023). "What happened to Paula Yates? Inside The Tube star's tragic death". Metro . Retrieved 14 March 2023.Yates's lippy, ludicrous public image made her an easy target for derision. She loved the spotlight, and her fame by association. Anonymity never suited her. She was vulgar, irrepressible and eccentric, and, in many ways, represented all that is silly and vacuous about modern celebrity. Ramsdale, Suzannah (13 March 2023). "Paula on Channel 4 review: The sad, but familiar, tale of how a unique talent lost her way". Yahoo and Evening Standard . Retrieved 14 March 2023.

The saving of Geldof's soul". The Independent. Ireland. 4 March 2013. Archived from the original on 9 April 2018 . Retrieved 8 April 2018.I thought I was at the darkest point in my life – now this' ". BBC News. 13 December 1997 . Retrieved 19 January 2023. Calnan, Denise (24 October 2014). "Geldof blames decision of family courts for daughters' pain". Irish Independent. Archived from the original on 13 January 2020 . Retrieved 13 January 2020. Yates' turbulent loves". BBC News. 17 September 2000. Archived from the original on 12 March 2012 . Retrieved 22 May 2010.