TV presenter Paula Yates dies of accidental drug overdose September 17, 2000
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Paula Yates, best known for her flirty interviews on The Tube and the Big Breakfast, was found dead at her Notting Hill home of an accidental heroin overdose.
TV presenter and writer Paula Yates died on this day in 2000 at the age of 41.
Yates, best remembered for appearing on music show The Tube and on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast, was found in her bedroom at her home in Notting Hill by a friend.
She had become concerned when Yates’ phone was answered by her four-year-old daughter Tiger Lily, and arrived to find the child – the daughter of Yates and late rock star Michael Hutchence – playing near her mother’s body.
Yates was later found to have died of an accidental heroin overdose, with the coroner deciding that it was no suicide, but the result of “foolish and incautious" behaviour.
A friend told the inquest into her death that Yates had not taken illegal drugs for nearly two years, and the coroner concluded that although the amount Yates had taken would not have killed an addict, as "an unsophisticated taker of heroin", she had no tolerance to the drug.
Yates had become increasingly troubled since Hutchence’s death in a Sydney hotel in 1997. While his death at 37 had been ruled a suicide by the coroner, she maintained that it had been an accident. Hutchence’s family later fought her for custody of Tiger Lily, while ex-husband Bob Geldof gained custody of their three children, Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches and Pixie after she attempted suicide in 1998.
