Tributes are being paid to the TV personality Paula Yates whose body has been found in the bedroom of her west London home. Police officers are still at the 41-year-old's home investigating the circumstances of her death. A post mortem examination will be carried out tomorrow but police said that they were treating the death as suspicious. A forensic medical examiner confirmed she was dead at 11.30am. Bob Geldof, who was married to Yates for ten years, has described the loss for all her children as “insupportable”.
Yates also had a child with Michael Hutchence, the lead singer of INXS, who died in a hotel room in Australia in 1997. In a statement this afternoon, Geldof expressed sadness at the news and said that the loss for all the children was insupportable. Fans have been paying tribute to Yates outside her home in London.
The TV personality had been plagued by depression, for which she had sought treatment on a number of occasions. The British press reported that she had tried to hang herself in 1998 but a friend found her in time. Geldof and Yates split in the mid-1990s and Geldof won custody of the children after a bitter divorce. Following the death of Hutchence, New South Wales coroner Derrick Hand found that he had killed himself due to depression over the child custody battle between Yates and Geldof.
Yates and the family of Hutchence were involved in a custody battle for his daughter following the rock star's death. Blonde-haired Yates rose to fame presenting the cult 1980’s British music television show "The Tube". She had recently been seen with a succession of companions, including British singer Finley Quaye.
