Bob Geldof ‘considered suicide’ over Paula Yates split

Singer's only reason for carrying on was 'the children'

Bob Geldof has spoken out about how his separation from his wife Paula Yates almost drove him to suicide.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4 for the programme Meeting Myself Coming Back, the singer said, “When she left me I was destroyed. I didn’t understand why: never saw it coming.

“The grief was universes of grief. My head was crowded with loss.”


The couple began their relationship in 1976 and were married a decade later. But the marriage collapsed in 1995 and a year later the couple divorced. The pair raised three children together, Trixibelle, Peaches and Pixie.

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When Geldof was at his lowest he made a list of reasons to live and reasons not to. In the programme he reveals, “There was only one item in the list for why I should continue: it just said, ‘The children’.”

In 2000, Yates was found dead from an accidental heroin overdose on her daughter Pixie’s 10th birthday.

Speaking of her death, Geldof said, “It was so mad and ultimately epic in its tragedy; Shakespearean. I know that sounds grandiose, but I don’t think you can describe it any other way.”

The interview will be played on Meeting Myself Coming Back, BBC4, next Saturday (July 2).

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