In a deeply moving interview on Friday's Late Late Show, singer Bob Geldof discussed his life since the death of his daughter Peaches in 2014 and told host Ryan Tubridy that playing live with the Boomtown Rats keeps him sane.
Geldof said he had been overwhelmed by the outpouring of sympathy from Irish people following the death of Peaches from a drugs overdose in April 2014 at the age of 25.
"I got so many beautiful letters and cards, mass cards and things like that," he recalled. "I read them all and I replied to as many as I could actually reply to."
"It doesn't put anything in perspective," he continued. "But it's like I've said about other situations - I've been on here and I've talked about it - stuff happens. Everybody here, everybody watching - they know stuff happens. What do you do? You get on with it. The getting on with it gets harder, but you get on with it."
Geldof described playing live as vital and his "get out of jail card for free". He said that if it wasn't for the drive and energy that come with performing "you'd go under".
When asked by Tubridy if he found people's assertion that time is a healer to be glib, Geldof replied: "I don't think it's glib but I think they've got it wrong. Time doesn't heal; it accommodates. Again, I stress every single person probably has something that they'd rather not have to deal with."
Geldof said that the death of Peaches is the hardest loss he has had to deal with in his life - the one he is unable to compartmentalise. Peaches' mother, Geldof's first wife Paula Yates, died from an overdose in 2000.
"You don't expect your children [to pre-decease you], but if they've been having a problem with drugs and you've done whatever and they've done whatever to get it [under control] then it doesn't happen you're sort of half living in the expectation," he said. "Parents who've got this problem know all the time you're on tenterhooks. But you never expect it to happen is the truth.
"The worst is this very mad, beautiful kid - very talented, stupidly talented, too talented, too articulate, too able to write like nothing - she's always 24 forever."
"But it isn't as if I go 'round moping," he added. "You get on with it, you know? It's a life, Ryan, it's a life."
Geldof also paid tribute to his wife, Jeanne Marine, whom he married in April of this year after almost two decades together. They met after Geldof's marriage to Yates ended in 1996.
"I wouldn't have got through those 20 years without her," he said. "She took on these four children when they were babies - not her own - and we got through it all."
