'She lived life like a fizzing firework': moving tributes after tragic death of Peaches Geldof

Peaches Geldof, who has died suddenly at 25, always led a very public existence, from partying to posting daily Instagram shots of her family idyll. Maxine Frith examines a life through a lens
Maxine Frith9 April 2014

The last four days of Peaches Geldof’s life — faithfully recorded on her Twitter and Instagram accounts — could be depicting two entirely different women.

Little more than 24 hours before her body was found at her Kent home Peaches posted a picture of her 11-month-old son Astala eating his dinner while others show his older brother Phaedra, 23 months, holding old family photographs.

Her Twitter bio declared that her main job in life was "waging a never-ending war against dirty nappies" and reflected her new job as a star columnist for Mother and Baby magazine.

But last Friday night depicted the other Peaches — the glamorous girl-about-town who was a front-row favourite at London Fashion Week, muse for top designers in the capital and enthusiastic adopter of the latest rock bands, restaurants and other trends in the city.

Fashion writer Faran Krentcil, who was Peaches’s boss during her stint at the New York based Nylon magazine, compared her last night to a "fizzing firework" who could entrance and infuriate in equal degree. "She was incredibly smart," Krentcil wrote this morning, recalling how she nicknamed her Princess Peach.

"She was cheerfully fearless. She behaved like royalty — she expected the road would always rise to meet her, and through some magical connection to cosmos, it usually did. Peaches was constantly late to meet celebrities or designers but she always managed to get the best interviews. She never seemed to sleep but her skin was glowing and her eyes were bright."

The 25-year-old had also recorded a recent night out with close friends on Instagram, sipping cocktails before going on to Hakkasan for dinner. Her hair sleekly ironed, wearing a miniskirt and knee-high socks that showed off the tattoos on her leg (as well what some are calling a "worryingly thin frame") Peaches posed on the lap of a friend looking like any other carefree twentysomething.

Now, as her friends and family grieve and wait for a post mortem examination to reveal the cause of her untimely death, Peaches's life is under the kind of scrutiny that she always seemed to simultaneously crave and reject.

And of course the comparisons with her mother Paula Yates are inevitable.

Both were precocious, ambitious, courted the media and loved life in the London spotlight. But they both also seemed to crave a "normal" family life — one that was lived through the lens of retouched photos and designer styling of shoots for celebrity magazines and their own parenting advice.

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And both died prematurely young; Paula from a heroin overdose at the age of 41 in 2000, when Peaches was just 11. Peaches's death came just two weeks before Astala's first birthday — a date which should also have seen Paula celebrate her 55th.

Police say her Peaches's death is not suspicious or linked to drugs but remains unexplained.

Peaches Geldof - a life in pictures

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Like her mother, Peaches was a child of her time — even ahead of it. In the public eye since birth, in recent years she lifelogged through Instagram, making her homely life with two small babies simultaneously a public one. Each day she posted pictures of herself with her husband and photos and videos of her sons — playing in the bath, driving toy trucks in the garden, laughing in the car, eating supper in bed. Normal life, but shared with the masses. Recent photos are now all now annotated with tributes from fans.

Similarly, her mother Paula was an ambitious young woman in the Eighties, who knew that television was the key medium and embraced the new style of anarchic broadcasting to raise her profile. Like Peaches, she loved the spotlight and media attention.

In the aftermath of her death news reports repeatedly played her old Tube broadcasts as well as footage of her flirting with INXS singer Michael Hutchence on a bed for The Big Breakfast morning show. The couple apparently began their affair just hours after the interview — and brought an end to the idyllic family life Paula had created for Peaches and her other children, Fifi Trixibelle and Pixie, along with their father Sir Bob Geldof.

The family lived at a country home in Faversham, just a few miles from where Peaches died at home.

Yates died a decade before Instagram was created and six years before Twitter was launched; Peaches was an early adopter of both. In the hours after her body was found the number of people following her on Twitter doubled while her final Instagram pictures — of her and her mother — was retweeted more than 5,000 times.

But both Peaches and Paula lived life as publicly as they could. They both sold pictures of their weddings, pregnancies and children's lives to magazines at the same time as trying to adopt a quieter life.

Six months ago Peaches and her husband, the singer Thomas Cohen of the band SCUM, moved to a five-bedroomed home in the village, which has a population of little more than 1,000. Neighbours spoke of a quiet family who occasionally went to the local pub for Sunday lunch but spent most of their time at home or in their garden.

She talked about her devotion to attachment parenting — where mothers spend as much time as possible with their children — yet still pursued the glamorous London life that she had been part of since a young teenager.

At the autumn/winter fashion shows in February she was a star guest at the Mark Fast and Henry Holland events and partied with friends including Alexa Chung, Daisy Lowe and Savannah Miller.

Fast told the Evening Standard today: "Peaches was there to support me since my very first show and since then her continued support was always so meaningful to me. Peaches was such a vibrant and beautiful woman. Each time I met her there was always a spirit of excitement and enthusiasm for life in her. I will miss her."

Musician Lorde tweeted: "You were a sparkling, lovely person who showed me such kindness. rest easy, Peaches," and Boy George added: "Poor sweet Peaches Geldof. We spoke only a month ago and she looked like an angel..."

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