Paula - New series

[WandaOff]

Channel 4 this week, documentary about Paula Yates.
She was the same age as me and I followed her career from the beginning. Had a bit of a girl crush on her and was genuinely sad when she died.

[Maireas]

@IcedPurple - she definitely wasn't, not in my recollection, anyway. She was famous, but not as huge as that. I remember gossip mags about her, but I don't remember newspaper headlines until her tragic death.

[IcedPurple]

@Maireas

@IcedPurple - she definitely wasn't, not in my recollection, anyway. She was famous, but not as huge as that. I remember gossip mags about her, but I don't remember newspaper headlines until her tragic death.

Yes, that was my impression too. Obviously famous for 'The Tube' and for her books and journalism, and also as part of a 'celebrity couple' with Bob, especially after Live Aid. But not even close to Diana level fame.

[Notonthestairs]

@bellac11 That was dreadful behaviour by both the journalist and her mother - why would her mother not want to protect her from that?

But I was referring to Hughie Green falling out with Jess Yates in the 1960s after quite a long friendship/collaboration. Green then leaked Yates' affair. So her biological Dad helped end her Dad's career. Incredibly messy.

[HeadNorth]

I was also a teenager in Paula's heyday and didn't have much truck with her. If I recall, she wrote parenting books that dragged working mothers and said most women had such boring little jobs they should give them up when they had kids. She also thought hands on dads were unsexy and boasted that Bob never changed a nappy, she thought men should provide so women could stay home and make themselves sexy for men.

As has been pointed out, the 80s were tough for women and Paula was no sister. I thought she was pathetic and needy for male approval at the time. I'll need to watch the documentary and see if changes my mind.

[bellac11]

@Notonthestairs

@bellac11 That was dreadful behaviour by both the journalist and her mother - why would her mother not want to protect her from that?

But I was referring to Hughie Green falling out with Jess Yates in the 1960s after quite a long friendship/collaboration. Green then leaked Yates' affair. So her biological Dad helped end her Dad's career. Incredibly messy.

Yes I realised I was talking at cross purposes!

Yes her mother was completely out of order to not be upfront about what happened and even let her go through with a DNa test for goodness sake

In hindsight she looked just like Hughie Green when he was a young man but who would have known if her own mother wasnt truthful.

[TwoMonthsOff]

@WandaOff

I used to love the Tube. She wrote a column in Cosmopolitan iirc, clever and witty.
She was badly treated by the press , dread to think how bad it would have been now with social media.

Used to rush back from work on a Friday for the tube

[Ishouldbeoutside]

@Notonthestairs

@bellac11 That was dreadful behaviour by both the journalist and her mother - why would her mother not want to protect her from that?

But I was referring to Hughie Green falling out with Jess Yates in the 1960s after quite a long friendship/collaboration. Green then leaked Yates' affair. So her biological Dad helped end her Dad's career. Incredibly messy.

She had a very poor relationship with her mother. They weren’t speaking when she died.

[bellac11]

@Ishouldbeoutside

She had a very poor relationship with her mother. They weren’t speaking when she died.

Yes but her friend who was interviewed on the programme had phoned the mother to ask if there was any truth in it and she had the opportunity to then say, well yes, its true and let Paula deal with that however she needed to.

[Ishouldbeoutside]

I don't think her mother had much interest in Paulas wellbeing. From what I can remember, she was pretty self interested and probably didn't want the negative publicity herself.

[Lalgarh]

The Michael Hutchence film more or less blamed Paula Yates for his final disintegration

[bellac11]

www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/aug/06/features.review7

[sydneysunset]

The Michael Hutchence film more or less blamed Paula Yates for his final disintegration

That was my impression, too. Although it also emphasized the impact of the head injury, as well. I sensed a bit of an anti-Paula agenda in the way the film focused on his other relationships - especially his first love, Michelle Bennett, who was very beautiful and who he wrote 'Never tear us apart' for when they broke up.

I think Michelle was the last person he ever spoke to. He called her and she promised to come to the hotel and see him. It took her 20 mins to get to Double Bay, but by the time she arrived, he was dead.

[bellac11]

It was very anti Paula and minimised his contribution to his own problems

[Notonthestairs]

@bellac11

www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/aug/06/features.review7

😬 where do you even begin?

[bellac11]

@Notonthestairs

😬 where do you even begin?

Can her daughters that remain, break the cycle of dysfunction. I hope so.

Grandmother on drugs and out of it most of the day. Mother a fantasist who may or may not have known her real father and married her predator after being more or less exploited by the grandmother, Paula then meets her future husband at 17 and later succumbs to drug use and is estranged from mother, finds out her drug taking dad is not her dad. Daughter then also dies through drug overdose.

[Throwncrumbs]

@Ishouldbeoutside

I agree with all this. I was taken in by the earth mother stuff at the time. It just wasn’t true.

Lovely earth mother who hid her drugs in smarties tubes…just awful, if that was you or me SS would be at the door, not the same when you are rich and famous, no wonder her daughter followed suit. Tragic but avoidable imo

[Ttwinkletoes]

@IcedPurple

Yes, that was my impression too. Obviously famous for 'The Tube' and for her books and journalism, and also as part of a 'celebrity couple' with Bob, especially after Live Aid. But not even close to Diana level fame.

Diana said to her that she gets a break when it’s Paula on the front page

[Maireas]

@Ttwinkletoes

Diana said to her that she gets a break when it’s Paula on the front page

That's what I found difficult to believe. If it wasn't Diana then it was Fergie, or others. I genuinely don't remember Paula being so much on the front pages. I do think she was photographed a lot, though.

[Enthrallingstoryofstillnessandlight]

So many similarities between Paula and Diana

[IcedPurple]

@Throwncrumbs

Lovely earth mother who hid her drugs in smarties tubes…just awful, if that was you or me SS would be at the door, not the same when you are rich and famous, no wonder her daughter followed suit. Tragic but avoidable imo

That's according to a person interviewed in the documentary at least.

Not sure it was actually the case however.

[maranella]

@Enthrallingstoryofstillnessandlight

So many similarities between Paula and Diana

Yeah, good point!

• Both slim with short, blonde hair.
• Both serially unfaithful.
• Both married older men who weren't faithful to them.
• Both attention-seekers.
• Both had eating disorders.
• Both lauded as 'wonderful mothers' when actually they spent a lot of their time chasing after men and long periods away from their children.
• Both had miserable childhoods.
• Both always looking for something to fill the holes in their souls.
• Both died far too young and accidentally.
• Both hounded by the press.

[Forestfire12345]

I also saw a strong theme of "sanitising" her life. I'd have preferred some honesty or a more balanced view.
I wondered how they were going to deal with the drug issues. I'm not sure the truth was there. Nor was the truth of her maternal skills. All a bit glossed over.
Appalled however at the awful treatment by tv and Press.

[SwedishEdith]

This interview with her mother 🙄www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/aug/06/features.review7?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

[IcedPurple]

Both hounded by the press.

And both enthusiastically courted the press when it suited them.

[tothelefttotheleft]

@SwedishEdith

This interview with her mother 🙄www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/aug/06/features.review7?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Paula's mother seemed very very strange.