Sir Bob Geldof: I blame myself for death of Peaches ... I was responsible and failed

Sir Bob Geldof has said he "blames himself" for the loss of his daughter Peaches after she died of a heroin overdose earlier this year.

The Boomtown Rats singer said he "goes over and over and over" what he could have done to help the 24-year-old mother of two after she started using the drug again in the months leading up to her death.

He described Peaches, a journalist, model and television presenter as "super bright" but "frantic".

Ms Geldof was found dead by her husband Tom Cohen at their home in Wrotham, Kent, on April 7 this year.

In an interview with ITV News, Sir Bob said: "You blame yourself. You're the father who is responsible and clearly failed.

"For anybody watching, who has a dead kid and you're a parent. You go back, you go back, you go back, you go back, you go back, you go over, you go over.

"What could you have done? You do as much as you can."

He said newspaper attacks on his daughters following their mother Paula Yates' death in 2000 had also "damaged" them.

Asked if her knew about his daughter's drug addiction, he said: "Course I knew about it and we did more than talk about it, yeah. She was super bright. Too bright.

"A very errant mind that could focus intensely on a book which she would consume and just absorb it.

"But the rest was a franticness. She knew what life was supposed to be and God bless her she tried very hard to get there. And she didn't make it."

An inquest heard she had started using heroin again in February, after taking the substitute drug methadone for two and a half years.

Sir Bob said performing with the Boomtown Rats helps him to escape the grief of his losing his daughter, who had two sons, Astala, two, and one-year-old Phaedra.

"I put on my snakeskin suit and I can be this other thing," he said.

"It is utterly cathartic. Those two hours and I am drained. In every sense it empties, it drains my mind. On stage I'm lost in this thing and it's a very brief respite."