Peaches Geldof and the Geldof family #3

[Lizzie Mintdrop]

Slightly different topic, but I’m curious what everyone thinks. Why is this thread so interesting?
It’s all basically old news, but it’s a very active thread. I guess the Paula Yates documentary helped, but even before then there‘s a lot of discussion.

I think it could be because so many different topics are covered. Multiple generations. Looking at media from the past in a new way.

I wonder if it’s human nature to try and make sense of a tragedy?

It is really interesting, I like to see other people's opinions on a family that we all know about. We all read the same articles and all have differing opinions, to me, that is great and on a sociological level, fascinating. I live in an echo chamber, my friends and family usually have similar views to me so it's important to read what others think.

Everyone involved is a multifaceted character, there's no hero of the story but equally, there's no baddie either, we can empathise with them all. That makes the discussion flow, everyone wants to make sense of a story that couldn't have had a happy ending due to the flawed people involved.

Then you travel forward in time and Peaches repeats history and there are questions there too, why would they leave a child with a relapsed heroin addict?

I also think, there's always going to be interest when two, young, attractive mothers die in tragic circumstances, with babies in the room. We (society) will always want to examine women who don't fit into the saintly, altruistic mother role.

 

[Lizzie Mintdrop]

The whole thing just seems like a nightmare. Sordid is the right word for it.

I liked PY, I liked that she was a fun and flirty but had female friends instead of just being a pick me girl. I also thought she was a good mum (I was a teenager when I thought that). Now, as an adult, I can see thatuch of it was an act, I still have empathy for her but a lot of what she put her children through was kind of unforgivable.

I don't like MH, I can't be doing with the whole washed up sex god shtick, he seemed a self pitying, pathetic whinger to me. He seemed to think that BG should just allow his daughters to fly off to the other side of the world because it's what he wanted, very self centred. Also, if you believe Gerry Agar and PY version of events and even his brother, he used women's bodies for his own pleasure, even if they needed sedation to cope with it. Who the fuck puts an oyster in a vagina? Nope, not my idea of fun.

Lalalaletmexplain was talking about Limerance on her insta a week or so ago, I think they were both limerants and sadly, 4 children's lives were ruined.

BG doesn't come out of it well either. If PY was such a poor mother, he didn't do anything about it whilst they were still together, he was happy for his daughters to suffer then. Then during the divorce, he wasn't that fussed that it was getting messy and both were very bitter, causing more harm to his daughters. Then after their mother died he put them in an annex of his house, a complete dereliction of parental duty to leave three bereaved and messed up girls to just get on with it. Saint Bob, my arse. Of course, he didn't deserve for Peaches to die it I think good parenting may have avoided it

 

[RoseintheSunshine]

I have mentioned this on other threads. My mother, who had no idea at the time, met Bob Geldof on a long haul flight. This was before Peaches died.

She said he spoke highly and lovingly of his four girls - he even recommended some businesses for my mom to contact (which his girls used).

It was after the flight that my sister told my mom who she’d been chatting with.

 

[PeteM]

Hehehe, not taking as a dig at all! But maybe that thread should be renamed ‘Conspiracy FACTS’ if we’re going to start talking about Bono.

There was definitely a Bob-Bono-Michael connection. You won’t find one Irish person that will speak of it though.

This is a gossip site so you may as well talk more about it.

 

[granite grandma]

I was too young at the time to appreciate the tube and when she was on the big breakfast I just found her embarrassing. I remember watching the interview with Michael Hutchence and cringing. I didn’t think it was electric chemistry, I thought it seemed desperate and sad.

I do see things differently now. I have compassion for the woman who quite obviously was carrying a hell of a lot of childhood trauma. She was incredibly selfish though and caused so much damage to her children. I’m glad the other girls seem to be breaking the pattern like poor Peaches couldn’t.

I never saw her and Michael as a big love story. It was 2 damaged people who came together in a toxic whirlwind. I don’t think they would have stayed together if he hadn’t died. The way she described their big love story was very immature. All she cared about was holding onto him and fulfilling her own needs and wishes. Everyone else (including her children) were collateral damage.

Just watching the documentary I wouldn’t have recognised Grace Dent. In my head I was envisioning her in her early Big Brother days of fame.

On a separate note I saw the Boomtown Rats at a festival a few years back. I had no interest in watching them but they were brilliant. Bob is an excellent front man.

I saw the boomtown rats in 1978 they were very good. I remember reading one of Paula’s book and crying with laughter at her description of Bob driving them to their country house, she was a good writer but very much of that time. I think her upbringing massively effed with her head, her mother is a dreadful woman, total narc, jess the dad who brought her up was clearly bipolar, Paula never had a chance really. I think MH should have had more testing and treatment for his head injury, I think there was a lasting impact that was not properly recognised. As someone else said, 2 damaged ppl drawn together in a folie a deux, and bringing a child into it. At least Tiger seems grounded, I wish her the best life.

 

[maytoseptember]

I’m not blaming Peaches for getting knocked up. I think they were both too young, stupid and hedonistic to think about contraception. No doubt full of romantic boho pretensions about hordes of mop headed kids scampering through their house.

 

[maytoseptember]

I agree, I like her too but I’d also be interested to find out why she seems to have fallen out with her BFF Twitter mates from years ago (Caitlin Moran, Lauren Laverne etc).

Ooh, that is interesting. At the risk of repeating all the same old shit on Tattle I really liked Lauren Laverne (and tried to like CM) but my Twitter timeline was constantly full of the two of them chatting away to teach other and giving off “you can’t sit with us” vibes I ended up going off the pair of them.

This was early Twitter when there wasn’t even a RT button and tweets with people tagging each other were shown on your timeline as much as general tweets.

It wasn’t just those two, but my god, there were a lot of self-satisfied Muswell Hill types showing off how witty and popular they were back then. It was better when celebs were mysterious and you didn’t know they were a bit twattish.

 

[Suzesnooze]

I never understood how Bob could announce his engagement so soon after losing Peaches! It was like well we needed some good news to cheer us all up! I thought it was crass and should have been done quietly or later on at least!

He said he had planned to propose after 20 years on his partners birthday but then Peaches died and afterwards he thought maybe they needed something like the wedding and I agree actually. It’s something happy amongst all the sorrow.

 

[plinky2]

No one expected MH to die that young so there was no proper provision for Tiger, as everything had been tied up in trusts to avoid tax.
---
I remember seeing him on TGIF before he died and he looked truly horrendous. He was all thin, Sallow in the face, his hair was greasy and lank, he was shaky and I honestly find it hard to believe he was as blissfully happy as PY has made it seem

 

[plinky2]

It is so annoying she’s blaming Helena now. This is why Tiger was estranged for so long, because his family did nothing but infighting and media interviews.
Michael asked Helena to keep it private and she did. I don’t think it was down to Helena to be responsible for Michael he was a grown adult. It’s well documented Michael dabbled with drugs alcohol and depression for a long time, before his accident and the 2019 film maker said they found lots of older references to suicide over the years and images in his diary

 

[Scarlett O' Hara]

It's just all so sordid.

 

[GalaxyGirl70]

I found the documentary to be very careful in what it said and seemed to make Paula out to be some sort of tragic figure. No one made her take heroin ffs.

I'm sure that there were articles in the press about Bob Geldof after she'd died, when he'd met Jeanne and that the children lived in the house next door with a nanny rather than with them.... no wonder Peaches never stood a chance. Neither parent seemed to want to put any of the grunt work into parenting them. I think Bob has been just as poor a parent as Paula was.

 

[Beverley Macker]

I want to be a ballerina but I’m not. I don’t go around telling lies claiming that I am a ballerina, and then sneering at people who aren’t to make them feel like shit.

 

[ThePelican]

If you are in your 50s, how is Paula “before your time”.

Anyone who watched TV or read newspapers in the '80s would have been aware of her. She was ubiquitous.

One thing that stood out, as far as I was concerned, was that big tattoo - mostly because she was the first middle-class female TV presenter I'd ever seen who had one.

 

[Lizzie Mintdrop]

Is there any proof he didn’t parent them at all? He got custody of a 4 yr old in all this and by all accounts she used to sleep often in Fifis bed and called BG dad so it’s seems wild speculation to assume he did no parenting, they also seem very touchy, huggy with him for such a lack of relationship?
personally letting older teens have some space is not necessarily inappropriate and may have been approaching their 20s, I do know people with annexes and kids that live in when they are older.
PY MH sound horrendous!

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.

 

[Jelly Bean]

I really like her - I think she’s a great writer, has warmth and humour in spades as well as a keen eye for humans. She’s quite different from how she used to be, to me anyway, that sharpness has been tucked away - it’ll still be there but not on vibe so much these days I spose. I reckon when she threatened to get that lad sacked years ago she had a bit of a review of herself. But ego for sure. Doesn’t do performative feminism at least. I reckon she thinks a lot of women are right berks

She’s tented herself off from the other mean girls, online seemingly, which is moderately interesting.

Yes she was briefly in the Sali Hughes mean girl twitter sphere for a while but removed herself quite swiftly. Presumably when she saw how foul they were.

I always like her when she is a judge on Masterchef. Always very generous and kind in her praise.

 

[EnjoyingTheShow]

and Madonna had her lady of the manor phase. Which seems extra bizarre now when you look at her current guise!

Discussed with much hilarity on the Madonna threads! Funny cos she’s now a face stretching gangster rapper with a gold grill! Posh British Horse Riding Madonna version would be appalled

 

[Jane Tee]

He did seem nicer than this, but maybe it was when he was of his trolley while addicted to heroin?

MP - 'hes the only guy to leave Clydebank to become a heroin addict'

 

[Tabitha D]

I vaguely remember Peaches programme about Islam
It was so bad. She wafted around Marrakech saying things like 'this is all so wierd for a girl from London. Like, they have no fashion'.

ETA For a while she seemed to model herself on Paris Hilton, in that disdainful 'I'm so rich and have such a clique and love trivial things' way.

That documentary on Islam was terrible - quite offensively so, as I recall. Just really shallow, as you’d expect.
Peaches was terribly indulged when young - that Ellegirl column, a few documentaries like the Islam one, then there was even some project to set up her own magazine, though I don’t think that went far. She did modelling for a high-street lingerie brand (I think she was dropped when the drug stuff came out). She even had a terrible chat show for a while - it was panned and disappeared. I doubt anyone was given so many chances for so little talent and yet she didn’t seem to appreciate any of it.

 

[cee-bee]

But compared to what he used to look like, this is someone in a bad way

3 years before he died this was



View attachment 2036323

View attachment 2036342



And this is after he met Paula



View attachment 2036327

View attachment 2036328

I honestly believe his head injury was the beginning of the end for him.

I think his relationship with Paula was a symptom of a problem rather than being the actual problem