THROUGHOUT the Eighties and Nineties, Paula Yates was the archetypal wild child who indulged in a carefree life of sex, drugs and rock n roll.
All of that changed when the she met INXS frontman Michael Hutchence and started a toxic romance that would ultimately lead to both their deaths.
Now a new Channel 4 documentary, titled Paula, shows how the doomed affair was the result of her toxic obsession with finding the hottest rock god.
In a previously unheard interview with the TV host, carried out by OK! magazine’s Martin Townsend months before her death, she said: “I can’t imagine me ever going out with anyone who couldn’t fill a stadium.
“Michael and I had waited all our lives for each other and when we had each other it was everything we hoped it would be.
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“I could not have lived without Michael. I could not have beared to be without him.”
On November 22, 1997, Michael was found hanged in his hotel in Sydney, Australia, aged just 37.
It followed the latest bust-up between Paula and her ex-husband Sir Bob Geldof, which forced her to jet back to the UK and leave her lover behind with their 16-month-old daughter Tiger Lily.
Geldof had gained custody of daughters Peaches and Pixie — then aged eight and seven — after drugs were found at the home Paula shared with Michael.
The singer, who was looking forward to Paula and the three girls flying to Australia to see him, was heartbroken when the trip had to be cancelled after a custody hearing was adjourned.
Speaking about the impact it had on Hutchence, Paula said: “Michael hated to be away from us. Absolutely. Found it almost unbearable.
“And I think it was a crushing disappointment when I rang him and told him. It’s funny because I left the court, and I turned to my barrister and I said: ‘This will kill Michael.’”
He was already at breaking point due to the intense scrutiny of his relationship with Paula, which began in 1994 when she interviewed him — with their legs intertwined — on a double bed on Channel 4 show The Big Breakfast.
Paula claimed to hate the media’s interest — but in the documentary, Michael’s sister Tina suggests that the TV star was complicit in it.
She said: “The press surrounding that whole thing with Michael and Paula in London — it was a big deal.
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“At some stage he said to me: ‘It’s like people know where I’m going.
How do they know when I get a car, they know where I’m going a day before I am?’
“He said: ‘They’re always waiting for me with their cameras, its just really hard to live here.’
“I had my suspicions that Paula was making some calls, even though I didn’t know her so well.
"But there was something about her background that made me think: ‘Yes, they knew where he was going.’”
The rock star had previously been at the centre of a media whirlwind when he dated pop singer Kylie Minogue from 1989 to 1991, then supermodel Helena Christensen in 1992.
But nothing prepared him for what came with dating Paula, who’d been married to Sir Bob since 1986.
Having shot to fame on Channel 4 live music show The Tube in 1982, she became notorious for her flirty manner on The Big Breakfast, asking suggestive questions to the likes of Simon le Bon and Sting.
That led to her launching a business career selling her own brand of lingerie and perfume as well as writing books.
These were money- spinners which the documentary compares to Kim Kardashian’s lucrative business interests today.
One of Paula’s friends recalls her bumping into Princess Diana who told her she was grateful when she was on the cover of the papers as it gave her “a day off.”
There were whispers that Paula got together with singer Terence Trent D’Arby in the late Eighties — and for the first time she is heard confirming the fling in the candid interview unearthed in the documentary.
She says: “I had an affair with Terence for a year. It was very serious. he loved me, I loved him.”
Terence, now 60 and known as Sananda Maitreya, reveals how Bob Geldof confronted him in a New York hotel lobby.
He recalls: “He said to me: ‘So what’s this about you and my wife then — are you knobbing my wife?’”
Terence lied to save his skin — but Paula believed his career was ruined by the scandal.
The Big Breakfast launched in 1992, featuring Paula’s infamous bed-top interviews with A-listers ranging from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Mark Wahlberg.
She also interviewed Hutchence’s old flame Kylie.
Paula made a huge impression on Robbie Williams when Take That joined her for a chat.
Desribing her as “exotic, intoxicating and smart”, the singer fancied her from the start, and admits he prayed she didn’t fancy his band rival, hunky Jason Orange.
They became pals — and although Robbie never made any moves on Paula, he described them having sex in his song Cursed, which he released knowing she wouldn’t mind.
In the late nineties, when Robbie had left Take That and felt he was in the wilderness, they found a common bond that led to them sharing their indulgences — even if they didn’t always admit it.
In the doc he says: “We were seeking glorious escape. We both needed looking after.
“She’s very secretive about all of that stuff — it wasn’t something she shared. And by ‘shared’ I don’t mean shared the drugs. I mean shared what she was actually doing, because I just thought it was recreational party drugs ’cos she was dead opposed to coke.
“If I’d be taking coke I’d feel bad about taking it in front of her because she’d be like: ‘Dickheads take coke.’ Which is true. But she was secret squirrel.”
‘The price my family has paid is unbearable’
Following the death of Hutchence in 1997, Paula turned to alcohol and started taking antidepressants as she became increasingly agoraphobic.
She was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and appeared to have cleaned up her act, quitting London to live in the seaside town of Hastings in East Sussex.
But she never recovered from the pain of losing Michael — and as her mind spiralled out of control she even became increasingly paranoid.
Her friend Belinda Brewin said: “She used to ring me at two or three in the morning and she used to say: ‘He did love me didn’t he?’ and I’d say: ‘Yes Paula, he did love you.’
“She said: ‘This is what keeps me up at night, you know’ It was heartbreaking.”
Paula reveals in the unearthed interview: “It literally does feel like someone’s punched you or broken something? Your heart actually breaks, and you can feel all the time this pain.”
“It gets worse every day. Every night I just sit there. I don’t sleep very well. I never slept very well but I sleep very little now.
“I sit till three in the morning sitting in the darkness thinking: ‘Gosh, you know I’m not that old and yet this is it. It’s horrible.’”
Paula was found dead at her Notting Hill home on September 17, 2000, after an overdose of heroin.
The amount she had taken was small but the coroner concluded that “an unsophisticated taker of heroin” like Yates had no tolerance to the drug.
Her death shocked the nation, particularly as the daughter she had with Michael was now an orphan at four years old.
But it wasn’t a complete surprise. With her family torn apart and the love of her life gone, the public had already sensed she was on a downward spiral.
Paula said: “The price my family has paid is unbearable, and to me it’s almost unbelievable on a day-to-day basis.
“People say, ‘She’ll die.’ Everyone keeps saying that to me.
“It’s kind of a weird feeling that everyone’s waiting for you to die.”
- Paula is on Channel 4 on Monday at 9pm.
