Inside the incredible yet painfully sad life of Paula Yates

She was the TV presenter whose fiery wit and chronically flirtatious nature made her one of the most famous women in the UK. Second only to Princess Diana, who reportedly told the starlet: “I love it when you’re on the front page because it means I’ve got the day off.”.

Having once declared, “I can’t imagine me ever going out with anyone who couldn’t fill a stadium,” her larger-than-life personality that dominated iconic shows The Tube and The Big Breakfast and her high-profile affairs with some of the biggest stars in rock of the time, sent tabloids into a frenzy - with her every move making headline news.

What’s more, she was the OG celebrity-turned-business mogul, having capitalised on this attention via her own brand of lingerie, perfume and by writing books. One of these was titled Rockstars in their Underpants, perfectly summarising the audacious temperament for which she was so beloved.

From asking Kylie Minogue, “Is it true you had an affair with Prince?”, to convincing rock band Police’s frontman Sting to take his trousers off live on air, there was no one quite like Yates. Plagued by tragedy in her later life — which included a publicised divorce with UK national treasure Bob Geldof; a drug-fuelled, heartbreak-headed love affair with INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence; and an untimely death in 2000 due to an accidental heroin overdose on her daughter Pixie’s 10th birthday — her legacy has been grieved by many.

Here’s all you need to know about the devastating yet brilliant life of Paula Yates.... Yates was born in 1959 in a small village in North Wales called Colwyn Bay. Her parents, the showgirl with a genius level IQ of 160, Elaine Smith, and former presenter of ITV’s religious show Stars On Sunday, Jess Yates, had a fractious marriage. Her father refused to end it — despite their growing resentment towards one another.

In her autobiography, Yates described a turbulent childhood rife with abandonment. “I used to go to bed not knowing if she’d still be there in the morning… I would lie outside the toilet if she went to the loo,” she wrote. Her parents eventually separated, with her father moving to Leeds where Stars on Sunday was being filmed, and her mother moving to London.

After being embroiled in a scandal with his 16-year-old lover, her father was expelled from the industry and became Yates’ primary carer. A manic depressive, he would shut her in an orange box and practise the organ for hours, she said. Yates later said that the neglect meant that she couldn’t speak until aged four, wasn’t potty-trained until five, had an eating disorder by eight, and was experimenting with heroin at 12. Her mother disputed these claims, saying: “Fiction is always more interesting than the truth.”.

In a bizarre turn of events, in 1998 Yates discovered that Hughie Green — a hated and professional rival of her father’s — was in fact her dad. This came after Noel Botham, a former journalist and drinking friend of Green’s, revealed that one of Britain’s most famous celebrities was actually Green’s child in an eulogy.

Following a nationwide “who-is-it?”, the News of the World ,which at the time was Britain’s best-selling newspaper, claimes it was Yates. The shocked presenter later took a DNA test to put the story to bed, but the results confirmed the allegations.

Yates’ first job was at music paper The Record Mirror, where she wrote a column called “Natural Blonde”. She first came to prominence in the 1980s as the co-presenter of The Tube alongside Jools Holland. The Channel 4 show platformed emerging ‘80s bands and was an important outlet for performers. For example, The Proclaimers claimed their performance of Letter from America on the show was instrumental in them securing their first top-10 UK hit.

During this time, she also released a version of Nancy Sinatra’s hit song These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ in 1982, appeared in a spoof documentary on pop group Bananarama in 1987, and wrote two books on motherhood. Then teetotal, she would get up at 5am to fit in a career alongside traditional family life with her husband, the Boomtown Rats frontman Geldof.

Her breakout role was undoubtedly her stint on The Big Breakfast, which was produced by Geldof. She became known for her “on the bed” interviews, where she would interview the biggest stars on, well, a bed. The notoriously giant pink, fluffy bed adorned with animal print became the site of one of her big tabloid scandals — but more on that later.

At 16, Yates dropped out of school and moved to London. She became a fixture in the blossoming punk scene where two years later, aged 18, she met Geldof. The pair became inseparable following their party meet cute, with Yates joining the Boomtown Rats on tour before beginning a relationship with Geldof.

Due to Geldof’s absent mother, who had left the family when he was seven, the musician was initially a notorious commitment-phobe — even after the birth of their first daughter Fifi. To counter this, Yates left notes around their house on which she had practised her signature ‘Paula Geldof’.