Michael Hutchence was planning to leave his girlfriend Paula Yates days before his death, according to his INXS bandmate Kirk Pengilly.
Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence had a baby girl, Tiger Lily, but their life together was fraught
During an exclusive interview given by the band to Australian Channel 7's 'Sunday Night', Kirk Pengilly said Michael Hutchence had told him that he wanted to split up with Yates — a secret he kept to himself for 16 years.
“Just prior to his death that week, what he told me was that he had a plan in place to basically split up with Paula ... what can I say? That’s what he told me,” Pengilly revealed, adding that it was a long time ago and he didn’t like to dwell on it.
“It seems as though perhaps Paula had a kind of mission from a long time ago to get Michael. And maybe he just couldn’t get out of her web,” Pengilly added.
During the exclusive interview, the band also confided their surprise when Michael started dating TV sweetheart, Kylie Minogue, whom they called “a little bit Charlene off the camera” adding that their charismatic frontman definitely "corrupted her", something Kylie has hinted at herself.
Michael Hutchence dated Kylie Minogue, a meeting of opposites
Michael Hutchence also dated Danish supermodel Helena Christensen, but it was his romance with Paula Yates that made for the most torrid headlines, after their affair started "about half an hour after they met," according to Kirk Pengilly.
The couple had a baby daughter Tiger Lily, but their lives had become increasingly fraught as they fought a custody battle over Paula's other three daughters - Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches and Pixie - with her former partner Bob Geldof.
The night that he died in November 1997, Michael Hutchence had a huge argument by telephone with Bob Geldof, from his Sydney hotel room, where his body was discovered the next morning.
Paula Yates never recovered from the death of Michael Hutchence, and she died of a heroin overdose in 2000.
Bob Geldof took orphaned Tiger Lily into his home, so that she could be brought up with her sisters.
“Michael hated Bob in the end so much, to think that he would end up as the sole parent of Tiger Lily would have been the most horrific thing he could have imagined," the band's guitarist Tim Farriss told the programme.
"But luckily for Tiger she had Bob at the end,” he said.
