Peaches Geldof and the Geldof family #3

[plinky2]

I watched that episode of HIGNFY - even though I was in my 20s I felt exactly the same as now - that they went right over the top and Paula just didn't have the defences to fire back (likely worn down so much by the paps chasing her - she was vulnerable by that time. I know Hutchence's family say she tipped them off often - I don't think she signed up for harassment and stalking, though).

It may have been misjudged and Hislop thought she'd fight back but she was just buckled by despair by this point. I wonder why she agreed to appear - as others are saying, politicians (who have done genuine misdeeds) get an easier time of it on HIGNFY - and play the game. Who cares whether she got her boobs done or not?! Was the implication from Ian Hislop that she was trying (and likely failing) to compete with a supermodel to keep Michael interested? That's how I interpreted it.

Many here are put off by the friend's rather florid writing style but it's interesting she thinks Michael killed himself because of the drugs bust (the opium in the Smarties packet) yet it was later overturned by the CPS - "the police had been manipulated", as Catherine Mayer wrote.

The press went after Paula and Michael full force, for a sustained period - why - I don't know - affairs and scandals are red tops' bread and butter! They usually find a new target after a while.

I remember the "Paula Yates Caught With Black Star" headline well, which definitely wouldn't fly nowadays - why reduce a renowned musician down to simply being a "black man" if you aren't racist?

I did feel that the press hounded Paula to her death - even after Michael had passed - and she did try rallying - but the vitriol she got was immense. To pester, harass, even bug a grieving woman's phone, call her names when out walking her baby - it just beggars belief. "Blaming" just the media wouldn't be fair, but they definitely played a large part in contributing to her despair. Paula even said she was agoraphobic at one point.

There are a few who don't like Paula on this thread. I agree the batting eyelashes and couquettish interview style was getting a bit stale (some would say it always was) but she was her own person, vibrant, charming, stylish, worked hard, yes, she may have been something of a social climber (who isn't, in that world?) but I felt she was essentially a decent soul - certainly, her good friends remember her that way.

She made plenty of bad choices. It's a tragedy Paula and Peaches ended up dying before their time.

The truth is, there's often no good guy - bad guy in a split. it's obvious Saint Bob had his failings as a parent and husband as well.

I just cannot compute how being a self obsessed (and MH obsessed) hedonistic drug user (before MH died) makes someone a good parent and person, and the more boring parent who looks a bit grumpy but raised the kids and one who wasn’t even his, makes him the bad guy

MH was a complete mess, during his RS with Paula he declined so much. In part as INXS became outdated. Look at the TGIF interview. He looked awful. I love MH as a musician, but I don’t think he was a good parent. I don’t hate Paula, but she was a terrible parent. They both got a lot of stick for their OWN bad choices

Even Bono and friends got sick of them and stopped hanging out with him and Paula as they were always high. They had OPIUM in the house with kids - they deserved to get into trouble. It’s well known MH was using all kinds of drugs for a long time. A good mother would not have risked exposing her kids to that life. Their love was obsessive and unhealthy and destroyed both of them. It was not Bobs fault

 

[GingerJones50]

TL may have copied her sisters and called BG dad but she left the country to live on the other side of the world when she was old enough. Peaches had a horrendous heroin addiction, she was given an awful lot of freedom, at a young age to go clubbing and mix with adults in a world that most of us would consider depraved. Fifi was an alcoholic who suffered with depression. He could have accessed any and all types of counselling for them when they were grieving children but he left it to the nanny to deal with, does that sound like a present and loving father? It doesn't to me.

She gets less hassle from the press and is less known in Oz. Anyway, I’d be out to that sunshine like a shot if I could. She’s young and travelling.

Fifi wasn’t an alcoholic, she misused alcohol fairly briefly after her mother died. Depression is an illness and she was diagnosed at 11 while her parents were splitting so obviously they had therapy as kids.

He put Peaches in rehab several times and she ran away.

None of them have ever said anything negative about him, just positive. And Fifi has not been very complimentary about Paula.

To be fair, Paula and Michael left him with a right shithouse any parent would struggle to deal with.
---

What proof is there that they lived in an annexe at such a young age? I don’t believe it for a second.

That was a load of bollocks. Bob bought a mansion style apartment block in Battersea and converted it into one house. Of course the papers all said ‘Oh he’s bought lots of flats so the kids are living in their own flats.’ But it wasn’t true, it was one home.
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Agree re Michael. Gerry Agar wrote about his insistence that the three older girls were his, which sounds horrible for BG.

Gerry Agar has to be taken with a massive pinch of salt, but Hutchence’s manager and some friend’s have confirmed this is true as well. He referred to them as his daughters.

 

[EnjoyingTheShow]

Well I never!! St Bono

Also, Bono’s daughter who acts (Eve) is apparently one of the nastiest, bitchiest pieces of work you never want to be around. A real REAL mean girl (if you’ve ever been bullied by these types, you know how soul destroying this is - drive you to suicidal thoughts sort of situation) This is direct from a friend of a crew member friend who worked with her.

 

[despair]

How as a mother/working woman did she have time for all these affairs?

 

[coffeeandwine]

I know Gerry Agar seems to be a bit of an unreliable narrator, but in her book she said Michael was getting bored of Paula towards the end and was trying to get out of it. Had his eye on someone else. He was also getting bored with all the wrangling with Bob over the children and the way it took up Paula's attention.

(Btw she always described her tattoo as a 'vomiting fish').

I do think it's very telling that the last person Michael called before he died, when he was clearly very distressed, was his former girlfriend Michèle Bennett, saying he wanted to see her. Not Paula.

 

[lamaitresse]

I'm disturbed by the snippet of information that Michael would have his way with Paula, unconscious and drugged, and treat her like a doll to do with as he wished. That's if it's true, of course. https://tattle.life/threads/peaches-geldof-and-the-geldof-family-3.34183/page-39#post-14462000

Sorry, but people like this should be in a jail cell, not held up as sex gods or whatever. That's the same as that "sex therapist" on the We Need To Talk About Cosby documentary who said sex workers should be willing to let rapists who are into drugging women "let their kink out". I'm surprised they even let that "suggestion" be broadcast.

I was never keen on INXS even in their heyday and didn't see the appeal of Michael either, but that's just me. It's sad but his career was definitely on the decline when Paula took up with him.

 

[yayoi]

Watching the second part of the docu now, regardless on how u feel about her someone does not deserve to be followed and harrassed by the paps like that, especially not when they've just gone through death of a partner and the paternity issues. It's a shame we never learn - just because people are in the public eye they don't deserve to have their dignity and agency stripped from them. Things with the press aren't as bad as they used to be but seeing the clips of her and the kids being hounded by the press after Michael's death was so aggravating to witness. The whole story is so tragic from start to finish and all i can say is I hope the three girls have been able to heal and live their life after this

 

[shellie]

The press are arseholes. 14 months ago, my sister was killed in a head on with a drunk driver. Just before Christmas. I identified her the day after and that evening, I was told by our police liaison officer I had to put out a “family tribute” asap as the local gazette had been in contact. They said we had 24hours to do it before they did it as they knew her name.

I'm sorry for your loss.

 

[Jelly Bean]

How did it come to light that Hughie was her biological father? I know she took a dna test and her mother refused she’d ever slept with HG but how on earth did it come to that in the first place?

It was bizarre. At Hughie Green's funeral a relative of his mentioned his daughter was Paula Yates in the eulogy . That was the first anyone knew of it.
I can only presume Paula's mother had confided in Hughie Green and he had told this relative.
The relative, an elderly man (Hughie's brother???) went on This Morning with Richard and Judy to talk about it after Paula knew. Tbf to him Richard tore strips off him saying how unkind it was to announce it like that without giving Paula warning. The man seemed genuinely baffled and assumed Paula would be pleased and wanted to welcome her into the Green family . I don't think that happened.
I watched it at the time. All most odd.

 

[Make It Stop]

I am Irish and was a young child during live aid. That would have been my first awareness of Bob Geldof. I found Paula interesting and loved that she got married in a red dress so anti establishment or so I thought in my innocent mind. I think the children’s names made them instantly recognisable and memorable so that I would remember everything I ever read about them. A vibrant colourful family.

When Paula interviewed Micheal on the bed it was almost uncomfortable to watch the sexual chemistry was palpable. I found the whole demise of each of them very sad and sordid in a way and of course my heart went out to all of the girls.

Peaches courted publicity and attention therefore she was always on my radar and I found her utterly irritating until she became a mother. Again her poor poor babies are whom i really felt for after she passed. All in all the dysfunctional dynamics of this family are fascinating to my curious mind.

PS: Kylie Minogue did say at some stage that her relationship with Michael was a sexual awakening for her.

PPS: I always got the impression that Bob smells of piss.

 

[CoconotLoco]

I don’t think Paula was a good mum, she probably wanted to be one hence the books and fake family life. Some tea, my Godfather knew her slightly and couldn’t stand her. I have put this on another thread some time ago but couldn’t find it different name. This was in the 80s my godfather was good friends with John Galliano who was seeing Jasper Conran and they were in his company I think it was his studio and they heard a lot of noise and a child screeching mucking around then they heard a woman screaming and shouting swearing and a really hard slap the sort that echos around a room. He said he and John were doing all those OMG faces and sniggering about it being young - then Paula Yates came into view with one of her girls. But he said it occurred to him much later in life that the little girl hadn’t cried despite that slap must have really hurt. Imagine hitting a child like that all the time painting a picture of domestic bliss.
he also said he’d heard that Paula didn’t like Peaches and never took to her and was always very hard on her she sacked a nanny that Peaches loved and slept with.

Paula choose men and addictions over her kids, her generational trauma hinder her as a parent and her narcissist and self absorbed behaviour trump being a good parent.

I do think Peaches tried to be the parent and mother she never had to her sons, ultimately her addiction to drugs won, which always makes her ending more sad and a waste.

I don't think Fifi has this romanticised view of her mother like her sisters had she was older I believe she was 17 when her mum died so she saw and probably bore the brunt of a lot of her parents toxic behaviour.

 

[Scarlett O' Hara]

I remember watching an interview with Bob after Peaches died, I'm not too sure, but I think it might have been the Late Late show on RTE and he was a broken man. Irrespective of how I or anyone felt about him, it was heartbreaking to hear a father discuss the death of his child.

 

[Bonbon76]

(2) on a completely different and perhaps shallow note, it’s almost joyful to watch things from the 90s and see people looking like people. Paula in that 60mins clip has a thin top lip and a wrinkle in between her eyes and her face moves. And she’s still beautiful. I hadn’t quite realised how prevalent and just accepted it is now that a woman in her late 30s would have full lips no matter what and a completely smooth face.

I love this, it makes me so sad that no-one has their original face anymore.

 

[chirpycheapcheap]

I knew someone who worked in the hospital Peaches had one of her babies and it was well known she was an addict whilst having him and kept asking for morphine.

 

[Serene Serena]

Peaches only ever knew how to live life visibly. From toddlerhood, she and her sisters were in the papers, having picnics with mum and dad or mum and mum's mates, or mum and mum's boyfriend. It is all she ever knew. God rest her soul, and that of her mother's.

 

[Jelly Bean]

Interesting they are going with the 'they weren't shagging before the Big Breakfast interview' when it is common knowledge they were together before that

 

[MrsBsDayOff]

I couldn't put it down either. It was up there with "Life with my sister Madonna" by Christopher Ciccone. I'm not proud of that.
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I remember Paula telling Gerry that Michael "had cried in every major art gallery in the world". I dunno. I think Paula was no intellectual but sharp enough. Michael though, seemed sweet but a bit dim.

I got the impression Paula was very prone to exaggeration

 

[plinky2]

I met my children’s father when I was 19 and he was 26 and I didn’t feel like he was a grooming predator!

 

[despair]

I really thought Paula was awful. Awful woman and awful mum. I’m so sorry for those girls they lost their mum, I’m also sorry she wasn’t a less selfish human.

 

[cee-bee]

Oh the old “illegal”sex acts thing again lmao. So cringe. Supposedly he put an oyster in her vag. Groundbreaking. No disrespect to the dead but sometimes I read MH quotes about his love of women/sex and I get the major ick.

me too. I remember Paula in an interview talking about their sex life and it grossed me out. It didn’t feel genuine, felt like someone bragging about an adventurous sex life (they did “everything”) to keep her man around and because she was clinging to the idea of her being some sort of sex symbol, even though she was an older woman with a fairy large family. It’s the kind of silly behaviour people roll their eyes at if you’re in your 20s, but by your 40s you should know better.

it just sounded sleazy to me.