Fame has seemed easy for the precocious daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates, but her bad-girl antics have raised eyebrows, and the appearance of naked photos on the internet have lost her a plum job, writes FIONA McCANN
IT GIRL, socialite, reporter, DJ, columnist, model, fashion icon, TV presenter, rockstar ex-wife, girlfriend to a Hollywood star and, perhaps most famously, daughter of ex-Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof and the late Paula Yates, Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof is no stranger to the public eye.
Despite only turning 21 last month, she's already clocked up her fair share of column inches, not just those she's written in magazines such as the UK edition of Elle Girland more recently Nylon, but also those that have been documenting her party-hopping since she first emerged as a teenage wild-child on the London social scene.
Now the appearance of naked photographs of her on the internet, along with claims by the alleged ex-lover behind their publication that they were taken on a heroin-fuelled night in Los Angeles, has the red-tops in a frenzy once again, as one more slice of Geldof’s private life gets offered up for public consumption.
Yet as the second daughter of Geldof and Yates – her sisters are Fifi Trixibelle and Pixie, and she has a half-sister Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily from her mother’s relationship with INXS frontman Michael Hutchence – Geldof has grown up with her personal life played out in public, particularly in the wake of her parents’ high-profile divorce, her mother’s relationship with Hutchence who died in 1997, and Yates’ subsequent death by heroin overdose in 2000, when Peaches was just 11 years old.
The cameras were always ready to click on the children of the man who organised Live Aid and the glamorous, diminutive TV presenter. Yet just three years after her mother's death, Peaches was back in the public eye in her own right, as a columnist for the newly launched UK-based Elle Girlmagazine. When she began writing for Elle Girl, she was just 14, yet the young Geldof girl exhibited a remarkable precocity in her writing, and a smart engagement with the preoccupations of your average teenage girl.
HER STAR WAS quick to ascend, abetted by her flair for fashion, her cheeky outspokenness – she famously called TV stylists Trinny and Susannah "upper class bitches with no fashion sense" – and her love of the high life. The teenager was soon pictured at parties and fashion shoots, and began trying her hand at television, writing and presenting a one-hour documentary for Sky Television called Teenage Mind. By then, she was a household name, building on her public profile with articles in the Guardian, a stint at presenting on a Big Brother spin-off, and a documentary about Islam that saw her spend two weeks with devout Muslims to find out more about the religion.
Rather than take the college route like many of her peers, she to move out of the family home to a rented flat in Islington and pursue her burgeoning career. Still Peaches has managed to maintain a public profile and build on her CV, most recently as a regular contributor and columnist for the US-based Nylonmagazine. She's also turned her hand to modelling, making her catwalk debut in 2007 before signing up as the face of Australian label Dotti.
And then came a contract with lingerie brand Ultimo, as the new face and body of their Miss Ultimo range: it seemed that Sir Bob’s second daughter was at least reaping the cash rewards from a life lived in public.
All that changed, however, when the pictures of Peaches posing naked in an LA bedroom appeared on the internet, thanks to an opportunistic young man who claimed he only realised Geldof was famous when he found himself at Hollywood’s Scientology Celebrity Centre the following day.
Ultimo were quick to cut ties with their former poster girl, issuing a statement saying the contract would be terminated and that images of Geldof would be removed from shops, window displays and the company’s website.
“Miss Ultimo is a brand geared towards a young female audience and as a company we have a social responsibility to ensure we are promoting only positive role models that young women can aspire to,” said a company statement.
Both the drug allegations and the Scientology claims have been vehemently denied by Geldof, whose lawyer said that only alcohol had been consumed by his client. Yet it hasn’t stopped the gossip blogs going into overdrive, given her mother’s history and cause of death. And though the Scientology claims have also been vehemently denied, Peaches had already referred to herself as a Scientologist in a highly-publicised ITV interview with Fearne Cotton last October. Peaches told Cotton she was intrigued by “space and wormholes and Stephen Hawking’s theories and Richard Dawkins’s theories. I’ve always been really interested in quantum physics, and how we came to be and why. Which is how I guess I got involved in spirituality and stuff, and the religious path I chose to go down.” The religious path she revealed as Scientology, and claimed her father was supportive of her choice. “My father says anything that makes me happy and makes me feel like a better person is good.”
HER LOVE LIFE has provided as much fodder for comment as her religious leanings, particularly after her highly publicised marriage to indie musician Max Drummey in Las Vegas just one month after their relationship began. Geldof was 19 at the time. Six months later, the couple announced their intention to divorce, in what was described in their joint statement as an “amicable” split. “After much soul-searching we have made the mutual decision to end our marriage and have agreed to go our separate ways.”
Meanwhile, Geldof’s reputation for professional shenanigans wasn’t helped by an Irish appearance that left expectant fans disappointed. In town for the relaunch of Dundrum’s House of Fraser in 2008, Geldof was due to get behind the decks for a DJ set as part of the store’s big event. Yet those expecting to hear one half of the DJ duo Trash Pussies spin some tunes were disappointed, when Geldof left the store before her set was due to begin.
She did return to Ireland earlier this year, however, to be interviewed by Brendan O'Connor on The Saturday Night Showwhere she was entertained with impressions of Jedward by comedian and mimic Oliver Callan.
“She was a much nicer, much warmer person than she seemed in the interview,” recalls Callan of his encounter with Geldof. “She’s very intelligent, and very savvy about the media, even though that doesn’t appear to be the case. Considering what happened to her mother, she’s a very together person. I don’t think she lets all this affect her personally. She’s very young and very strong, and I think she’ll figure in public circles for a long time to come.”
After her Dublin trip, she went back to LA, where she recently celebrated her 21st birthday. It's also the base of her current paramour, 37-year-old director and actor Eli Roth, who recently starred in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.
And it looks like, at least according to her busy Twitter feed, Geldof is bouncing back from the recent public pummelling and continuing to defy her detractors with an uncanny ability to dust herself off and get on with life, in public or otherwise.
“Just experienced my first Seder with my amor @eliroth,” she tweeted her 74,740 followers on March 30th, the day after Ultimo announced they were dropping her. “I was amazed at his prolific Hebrew skills, and his dad is a real mensch . . . x.”
CV PEACHES GELDOF
Who is she?Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof, daughter of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates
Why is she in the news?She has been dropped as the body/face of Ultimo lingerie's Miss Ultimo range after naked pictures of her appeared on the internet
Most likely to say:"Er, I've read your biography dad. Do the words pot and kettle mean anything to you?"
Least likely to say:"Get me to a nunnery"
