Peaches Geldof

[Lavendergreendillydilly]

I can't find the original comment now, I wanted to check if anyone else said it but... Somebody mentioned Amy Winehouse being narcissistic and looking to see if anyone spotted her in the supermarket. Very unfair assumption. First of all just want to say I know and love people who genuinely do have a narcissistic personality. There's nothing wrong with it as long as they aren't hurting people. Also want to say, Amy wasn't a narcissist, she was very empathetic. She found fame very difficult. She could hardly step out her front door without having 10-20 cameras shoved in her face and people roaring at her. She was on edge all the time and the drugs didn't help. She couldn't trust anyone (and often trusted the wrong people), she was probably feeling very paranoid that day and felt people were staring. Which they probably were. She was very unwell and an extremely vulnerable and delicate person. So I just wanted to say that, since she can't!

And Mitch is awful. He was just like Jamie Spears.

 

[LadyStardust]

The results of the inquest: https://tattle.life/threads/19920/

I followed Peaches on Instagram for a couple of years before she died, and I was shocked to find out that she was a heroin addict. I totally believed her Earth Mother persona and attachment parenting way of life. I was fascinated with how they seemed to manage so well with two young sons under 2, and she was seemingly so honest on Instagram with the struggles of getting hardly any sleep, the mountains of pooey nappies etc. A few things that I have noted, and a few things I have wondered about:

1) Thomas Cohen's parents are both social workers. That makes it even harder to understand why baby P was brought to Peaches on the Saturday.
2) There is NO WAY you can live in the same house and parent two babies with a heroin addict and not know. Heroin is far from a subtle drug, and not only would Thomas have noticed that she was high, she also had a significant amount of needle marks on wrists and arms at the time of her death. He knew.
3) Saying that, how could he have left an 11 month old in her care?
4) Bob Geldof knew about her drug problems, this is why he didn't have any contact with her and her family the years before her death. On Instagram, she would reply that he had made the choice not to have any contact but would not say why, if people asked her about her dad. Cue people saying nasty things about Bob, for being "judgemental" etc.
5) She claimed on Instagram that the reason why she didn't breastfeed either baby was due to being hypothyroid and needing to take medicine for it. I have hypothyroidism, and taking levothyroxine is not dangerous in the slightest to a fetus or a breastfeeding baby. Opiates obviously are though.

 

[Vanillaco]

Mitch Winehouse is a foul, foul man who thrived on his daughter's spiral and notoriety to the extent of talking her out of seeking proper help. That man is still using her name to benefit his own self.

I was going to say similar about Mitch Winehouse. He left the family and barely had anything to do with Amy, leaving her mother to bring her up alone. He came slithering back when she became famous and pushed and pushed her, getting film crews in without her permission and getting her to do this instead of getting help.

 

[Gflo93]

This is the timeline of events:

Thursday 3 April

Husband Tom Cohen takes the couple’s two children, Astala, two, and
one-year-old Phaedra to stay for the weekend at his parents’ house in south
east London.

Friday 4 April – evening

Peaches goes out for a meal in London during the evening with two close
friends. She and one of the friends then go to the cinema before returning
to her friend’s house in Hampstead where Peaches stays overnight.

Saturday 5 April – morning/early afternoon

Peaches goes shopping in London before returning to Kent by train, arriving
back at Sevenoaks train station at 1.13pm.

She takes a taxi back to her home.


Saturday 5 April – afternoon/early evening

Peaches watches TV show True Detective and speaks to friends and family on her
phone.

There is no concern for her welfare.

Sunday 6 April – daytime

At home alone, Peaches maintains contact with friends on the phone and tries
to arrange a day out with family.

She tweets a picture with caption: “Bought Astala a cool summer look!
Liberty print caftan with matching shorts in a different colour and…”

Day out is cancelled due to poor weather.

5pm

Tom’s father Keith Cohen takes youngest child Phaedra back to Wrotham and
spends about half an hour with Peaches before leaving the child with her.

Inquest hears there is nothing about her mood or behaviour that concerns him.

6.17pm

Peaches posts a picture of herself as a child with her mother Paula Yates on
Instagram with the comment “me and my mum”.

She also messages friends saying she has been bathing her son Phaedra.

6.50pm

Peaches sends a message about the children to her mother-in-law Susan.

7.01pm

Peaches sends message asking her friend to phone her.

7.14pm

Peaches looks for The Dog Whisperer TV show on YouTube.

7.45pm

Peaches has a 12-minute phone conversation with the friend she had sent a
message to at 7.01pm.

This is the last known contact Peaches has.

9.48pm

Tom rings Peaches but there is no answer.

Nobody has any concern for her welfare.

Monday 7 April – morning

Tom makes repeated efforts to contact his wife but has no success.

A neighbour and a local dog warden visit Peaches’ home address but receive no
answer to knocks at the front door.


1.30pm

Tom, his mum Sue Cohen and Astala return to the family home in Kent.

Tom finds his wife on the edge of the bed and slumped forward in a spare
bedroom.

It is obvious to him that she is dead, the inquest is told.

1.35pm

Tom alerts his mother who rings the emergency services and relays information
from her son that he believes his wife has taken a heroin overdose.

Tom finds his son Phaedra.

1.55pm

Police and paramedics arrive and attend to Peaches, confirming “life extinct”.

Peaches’ body is removed from the property later that evening and taken to
Darent Valley Hospital where she is identified by her father Bob Geldof.

Personally, I really don’t think that Tom was involved. What the coroner said about her being less tolerant to the heroin after weaning herself off it seems highly likely, didn’t the same thing kill her mum.

Somethings are weird though:

Why did his dad bring only one baby back to Kent? New Eltham to Borough Green and Wrotham is an hour and twenty with three changes, then just to stay for half an hour. Seems like a big ask.

Why would you leave your 11 month old baby with someone you knew was taking drugs, I know that it was likely she hid a lot from him but Thomas Cohen said he was not at all surprised by her overdose, I think Bob said something similar. It seems nuts to leave a baby in her care. Why didn’t Bob step inThe poor baby was alone for hours and hours in the house, what if he had hurt himself.

Also isn’t it weird that Bob identified her body when Thomas had found it, maybe he wanted to say goodbye. Such a truly awful situation.

If I had not managed to get through to my wife (who I knew was using) at around 10pm then I would have a concern for her welfare. I get concerned when I don’t hear from my husband in hours (maybe I’m needy). It sounds like no one in the family had had contact from 6:50pm when she messaged her mother in law, I certainly wouldn’t wait until the morning/ to get home at lunch time. And why did a neighbour randomly go round to check on her with a local warden, who sounded the alarm.

There was talk about her exposing a peadophile ring (although this seems to be a conspiracy theory for a lot of things).

It was so terribly tragic, the fact that she was clean from heroin for a few years indicates she was trying to get clean, she was on methadone.

I hope her boys are living a vey fulfilled life surrounded by love.

I really don’t believe that blind, seems far fetched and he seems nice, he seemed to calm her down a lot too. Thomas has a new Instagram account, his aesthetic has changed a bit. His name is II_sylph_II

There was also talk of the nanny being a bit strange, not sure if anyone know about that. Oh and a rumour of a ‘cosy’ relationship between Tom and Tiger https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....-Tiger-Lily-Hutchence-family-beach-break.html

 

[Misbehaving]

I remember Helena being on the front of GQ magazine in her underwear and the headline was ‘Seriously, would you trade her in for Paula Yates?’

Yes i thought that was terribly demeaning and misogynistic!
I don't think that you would be allowed to make a headline like that now though which is some consolation?

 

[lalalanded]

when i re-watched this video, i realised that peaches’ argument was problematic in promoting cosleeping. it’s not a subject you can soundbite easily without fully going into it, because it DOES cause cause infant deaths. when it first came out and was doing the rounds after her death, i thought she looked great and came across wonderfully but now i watch and think with age comes wisdom i guess. without katie paired with her, like you said, it wouldn’t have been as dramatic and watchable. with another co-sleeping expert or a different kind of parenting guru, peaches might not have looked so good with someone to genuinely counter her points, and can back it up.

This is why these programmes really get on my tits. Peaches Geldof was in no way a parenting expert just because she had a baby. And an opiate addict advocating co-sleeping!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't get me started! So many babies die because of this.

 

[Lavendergreendillydilly]

I lived in london for a couple of years and was at a few of the same parties/events as her and Fiona Brown in their Trash Pussies days. They were pretty wild. I remember them both dancing completely naked on top of the bar and nobody paying them any attention.

Probably not paying attention because they'd seen it all before

I have to preface this by saying I don't KNOW her or her sister because I only ever saw them when I was either extremely drunk or on MDMA or what have you. Everyone i hung out with, and admittedly me, was wild back in those days and she wouldn't have been much more off the charts than the rest of us as far as I knew. I knew when those pictures came out about 3 years later though.

I only met her a handful of times and only really when she was with her sister. a close friend of mine (regrettably) went out with Pixie for a while. They were both * very * loud and obnoxious. Pixie seemed a little more grown up but for me Peaches especially was the type of person I'd try to get away from as the night went on because she was always a bit much and bit tooooo messy and in your face. I say this when everyone else, me included was off their face. i mean we all got far too drunk and most of us took all drugs. Some of the older people in their late 20s in the group just drank by that point. so it wasn't that the partying that made me uncomfortable. She was just tiresome. I remember her being shouty and clingy and rude and pretentious to some of my friends because we were true camden heads- a little on the gothy side a bit strange to her I guess. . I also remember Pixie getting pissed off when Peaches would go and hang off a certain group of people. In hindsight, I know why now. She was this whirlwind tearing through everything, a mess really. and then years later I saw peaches in a magazine and she looked like a delicate porcelain doll. She was beautiful and she was pregnant at the time posing beside her boyfriend, who I thought looked a bit like her dad when he was young but whatever. And I thought "wow, good for you girl, you grew up, you've had your fun and transformed yourself"

Like with her mum, I think there was a bit of revisionism after her death.
She fooled everyone and herself into thinking she had a handle on things. She wasn't very kind to outsiders or pleasant and she wasn't just a bit wild, as we know. I'm sure underneath it all she was a nice person. I would never martyr her but it is sad that she became an addict. Like I said earlier, we all know what heroin does, especially her, people tend to start taking it when they don't want to feel anything and I think that's what happened with her.

 

[lalalanded]

I think this, in a way, is why people are so shocked by Peaches, as a mother of 2, being a heroin addict. Society expects mothers to put their children before themselves every second of every day & throw off any perceived self centred desires.
So people cannot conceive that actually as someone with childhood trauma who clearly struggled with life before children she was going to struggle with motherhood (especially with 2kids in a year) & turn to her old dysfunctional coping mechanisms.
Motherhood can be indescribably amazing but it can be dull, monotonous & so unbelievable exhausting. Realising what society’s expectations of you as a mother are & that they aren’t the same for fathers can be deflating & soul-destroying.
Peaches was clearly struggling with motherhood but instead of being able to freely admit it she felt compelled to tell all & sundry she was a purist parent.
The narrative around motherhood & the vastly lower standard expected of men needs to be changed.

*stands up and claps*. You nailed it. The expectation of motherhood is horrible and unrealistic and puts women under horrible pressure, no wonder so many crumble or get massively depressed. We also need to stop selling motherhood as the answer to all problems for women that may be struggling in other aspects of their lives. Not fair on women or their children.

 

[Gflo93]

I feel really bad if any of this discussion has upset anybody and been triggering. I guess the thread was created to discuss peaches and sadly she died of a heroin overdose, so drugs and addiction are naturally an integral part of that discussion. As much as I am here to reminisce and discuss her cute babies, house, general Geldof goss etc. (and don’t get me wrong I’m here for that)... Personally, everyone’s stories have really helped me to understand addiction and I also feel like they have been respectful and supportive.

I suppose previously I was sympathetic to Peaches but like others naively wondered how she could have put heroin before her boys, thinking it was more of a clear cut choice. Understanding about addiction from people here has helped me to put myself in her shoes. I appreciate the subject is triggering but I do think it is useful and it is relevant. I know this is a faceless forum, but for me people’s stories have helped put a human face to the tragedy. Also it’s not often that people are open about this sort of thing, because it’s something people are made to feel shame about, if these posts help us to understand and sympathise I think that’s a good thing.

I saw in a video that somebody recomended earlier ‘the opposite of addiction is connection’ and it really struck me. I feel like if someone here is open enough to talk about their own struggles then not to connect with that and to shut them down due to discomfort wouldn’t be fair.

welcome to my ted talk

 

[Badirene]

I remember that too

Not to defend Sir Gob but you can't fault him for not wanting two drug addicts to take his kids to the other side of the planet. Not many parents would say "yes, have a good flight".

 

[OutrageouslyScarlet]

I think it’s unfair to say she didn’t come across as tortured, there’s no way her mother’s death etc didn’t effect her. When you lose a parent in tragic circumstances you don’t walk around crying all day everyday. My father died in really dad circumstances and it actually has been harder for me the older I’ve got.

 

[lalalanded]

I really don't want to seem like I'm just bashing her but I do think her tragic death at such a young age meant people giving her multiple accolades that she really didn't deserve. This never, ever fails to make me laugh like a drain:



This was shortly after I used to see her out and about on the London scene but that's how she used to look back then, she hadn't had her teeth or lips done at that point.

 

[Phil Anne Throw Pee]

Yes for sure! He was so sexy. I still listen to Kick all the time and thinks it really holds up. Classic album. He was an incredible front man too. I think the head injury really did play a huge part in his downfall. Would he have even ended up with Paula if it hadn't happened? He dated supermodels and Kylie, I really don't think he would have been interested in a middle aged married woman with three kids to be honest. I think Paula just wore these men down and would do things that other women wouldn't. She was incredibly sexy but she was hardly Yasmin Le Bon was she? She had to get in with these guys by other means!

I respectfully disagree. The chemistry between them is palpable in that BB clip. Paula was not a classic beauty but she was (by all accounts) extremely witty and clever with a voracious sexual appetite. I imagine after the beautiful (but rather dull) Kylie and Helena he would have relished someone a lot more interesting.

 

[flowersinmyhair]

I also think about this a lot and wonder how that family are doing. I used to really be so jealous of Peacjes when I was a teenager because she seened so cool to me and had a column in Teen Vogue (I think it was?) and It just seemed so glamorous to my 14 year olds self. Whah happened here is so tragic, those poor boys losing their mother. I also find it strange that no one seemed overly alarmed by it but maybe in hindsight they think the same and wish they’d acted differently so I don’t want to judge too hardly

 

[liar liar]

Peaches death really upset me at the time, I don’t know if it was because one of my children was a similar age to her eldest and I was a similar age to her, but I just found it so tragic. Especially hearing that her baby had been alone with her at the time.

I’m surprised her social media was all deleted, her instagram was up for quite a while after she passed - does anyone know when they got deleted? Though maybe it’s to protect the children. Like others, I’m glad they have been kept out of the limelight. I don’t think there was anything suspicious about what happened, just a tragedy for all involved.

I just assumed the neighbour / dog warden went round as I thought maybe Thomas Cohen had asked a neighbour to check on the house to see if Peaches was ok after he hadn’t heard from her.

When people die it is normal to cancel things that can come up and bite ya when you least expect it. I remember when my husband died and I got home and the bloody phone went and it was his voice on the answerphone. I went 100% mental. You have to shut down everything from a legal and emotional standpoint. What is the point of keeping social media open? Her family deserved peace not intrusion. I think you are right that it was to keep the kids safe and she simply overdosed. She was an addict - eventually it gets them like it did her mum. Drugs cause highs and terrible lows.

 

[maytoseptember]

If I had a pound for every time I heard a woman say she’d been told she couldn’t conceive due to PCOS, but actually had no issues conceiving whatsoever, I’d be rich

 

[Pixie06]

Models inject between the toes. I'm pretty sure Kate has done every drug going and come back for more!

Do you remember Amy Winehouse blood soaked ballet shoes.

 

[lalalanded]

yeah she was such an annoying precocious teen, Charlie Brooker cracks me up

He's absolutely brutal!! But I think that this demonstrates that Peaches wasn't some tortured soul desperately mourning her past. I just don't go for that narrative at all. A LOT of rich kids go down the path she did, even without the childhood tragedy. A mix of no boundaries, a lot of money, no job, no routine, no responsibility and the whole London party scene is lethal for a lot of kids like her.

 

[Bloody orange Hell]

I think there's relevant talk and then there's some off topic discussions, that's all.

But threads often veer a little off topic and come back. All the chat has been about the nature of addiction, living as a functioning addict (or not as it turns out), methadone use etc etc. Everything that was relevant to Peaches life.

Its an uncomfortable subject but that doesn’t mean it should be avoided. It was integral to her life. And her mum’s.

Shame is a killer. Literally. It stops people seeking help or even just finding out more information. There is so much disinformation about drug addiction.
And everything, so far, on here has been supportive, informative, relevant and compassionate.

 

[LadyStardust]

According to the inquest, Thomas found text messages on Peaches's mobile phone in February 2014 (she died in the beginning of April 2014), which indicated that she had started using again. He then confronted her, after which she got £500 worth of gear out of the loft, and flushed it down the toilet in front of him, to demonstrate her willingness to stop. He said he believed she never actually stopped though. When the house was searched after her death, they found heroin and paraphernalia (syringes, needles, citric acid etc) in the loft and in various places throughout the house, wardrobes, cupboards etc. I just find it absolutely extraordinary that he never felt the need to search the house (or at least the loft!) again after the February incident. It just seems naive, bordering on careless, especially considering that they lived there with two toddlers. Apparently some of the drugs/needles were found stashed in sweetie boxes. The risk of the children finding those boxes thinking they were sweets was a real one!