Update: Peaches Geldof had secretly visited rehab in the weeks before her death
02 May 2014
Peaches Geldof had visited rehab in the weeks before her death and was on a prescription for methadone, a report has said.
The 25-year-old was found dead at her home in Kent last month and yesterday an inquest heard how she had likely died from a heroin overdose.
However, in a sad twist of events, it has emerged she had been seeking help for her drug problem and had visited a rehab centre just a few weeks before her death.
According to a report in the Sun, the mother of two had been visiting a rehab centre in Maidstone in secret, as her husband Thomas Cohen and father Bob Geldof would have been upset she was having problems with addiction again – Peaches had previously spoken of her battle with drugs during her teens and early 20s.
A source who had befriended Peaches at the clinic told the newspaper: “We were on first name terms but I called her P. She used to wear a hoodie to disguise herself. She said she didn’t want her family or her husband to know about the drugs and it was top secret.
“She said ‘You’d better not say anything to anybody’. She didn’t want her husband finding out. She said he was completely straight and that Dad would go spare if he knew anything about it.
The inquest heard how Cohen had found his wife slumped on a bed. “She said she didn’t want her family or husband to know about the drugs and it was top secret. She used to arrive on her own. She was on a script and had to turn up weekly,” the source said.
Police investigating the death of Peaches Geldof found drug paraphernalia at her house in Wrotham, Kent, it has now been confirmed. Earlier reports had claimed that no drug-taking paraphernalia was found near the journalist and TV personality’s body, amid concerns the scene may have been ‘tampered with’. But police have now confirmed that they did, in fact, seize such equipment from the mother-of-two’s house on April 7. It comes as musician Thomas Cohen, 23, was pictured walking through the streets of London with a female companion.
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Peaches Geldof died of a heroin overdose, the same cause of death as her mother Paul Yates in 2000, Britain’s Times newspaper reported on Thursday.
The model died suddenly on April 7, aged 25, but the autopsy proved inconclusive.
However, Detective Chief Inspector Paul Fotheringham is due to tell a hearing in Gravesend, Kent, later Thursday that toxicology tests showed she had died of a heroin overdose, the paper reported.
Peaches, who wrote for British magazines and newspapers and presented celebrity-driven television shows, was found dead at her countryside home where she was looking after 11-month-old son Phaedra.
Husband Thomas Cohen, 23, had spent the previous night apart from his wife and was looking after their eldest son, 23-month-old Astala. He raised the alarm when he could not contact her by phone.
Police searched the property for drug paraphernalia, but found none.
Peaches Funeral
21 April 2014
Celebrity mourners joined friends and family to bid a final farewell to tragic Peaches Geldof at the model and television presenter’s funeral.
A poignantly decorated coffin which included a picture of her young family carried the 25-year-old’s remains to the private service in the same church where the funeral of her mother Paula Yates was held.
Sir Bob Geldof is thought to have led tributes to his daughter in front of a host of well-known personalities at St Mary Magdalene and St Lawrence church in the village of Davington, near Faversham in Kent.
They included Sarah Ferguson, supermodel Kate Moss, Four Weddings and a Funeral screenwriter Richard Curtis, musician and television personality Jools Holland, former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman and BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show presenter Nick Grimshaw.
Peaches’ coffin was painted sky blue, with clouds and flowers along the side and a picture of her family and pets at the back.
Around an hour and 45 minutes after arriving, the hearse which had transported the socialite’s remains left without the coffin.
Dozens of locals gathered outside the church, which is where Peaches married musician Tom Cohen, the father of her children, in 2012.
It is also where television presenter Paula married Sir Bob in 1986.
Paula’s funeral was held there after she died from an accidental heroin overdose in 2000, aged 41.
There were bouquets and cards left outside the entrance to Davington Priory, Sir Bob’s country estate next to the church, where Peaches grew up.
Written in chalk on the church’s wall, a message read “RIP Peaches”.
Mystery still surrounds her sudden death on April 7.
Her body was found at the home she shared with her husband and their two young sons, Astala, 23 months, and 11-month-old Phaedra, in Wrotham, Kent, after officers were called “following a report of concern for the welfare of a woman”.
Former Boomtown Rats singer Sir Bob paid tribute to his daughter alongside his partner Jeanne Marine and Ms Geldof’s sisters Fifi Trixibelle, Pixie and Tiger, saying she was the “wildest, funniest, cleverest, wittiest and the most bonkers of all of us”.
Kent Police said it was being treated as a “non-suspicious, unexplained sudden death”.
An inquest is not expected to be opened and adjourned by the coroner until after the results of toxicology tests are known.
Peaches Geldof Last Interview
13 April 2014
“I’m not sure I’ve yet fully made peace with my childhood, but with my mum I have come to terms with everything” – Peaches Geldof
The young mother-of-two, who had just turned 25 at the beginning of the month, said that as a grown woman she could now relate to her own mother, who died of a heroin overdose when she was 11.
In an interview which was never published with Aga Living Magazine, she said: “I’m not sure I’ve yet fully made peace with my childhood, but with my mum I have come to terms with everything. She had a really difficult time.
“There are so many parallels between us. I feel her living through me all the time because we are just so similar.
“Now I can understand everything.
“I think you have to experience hardships and pain yourself to fully understand people who have been through it and also you can never really experience happiness unless you’ve had that down feeling too.
“Soren Kierkegaard [the Danish philosopher] talks about being in love with one’s own sadness. I so agree with that. Sometimes it’s enjoyable to be a bit depressive, I think.”
Ms Geldof also said that she was full of plans for the future, saying that she wanted to add a daughter to her family, and planned to raise her sons Astala, 23 months, and Phaedra, 11 months, to be the “sweetest kids of all time”.
She said: “The way I’ve been raising them is with pure love. I just have a lot of hopes for them, really, and I hope when they’re older they get to have a bit of the youth that I lost out on when I had them.
“I think you have to experience hardships and pain yourself to fully understand people who have been through it and also you can never really experience happiness unless you’ve had that down feeling too.
“Soren Kierkegaard [the Danish philosopher] talks about being in love with one’s own sadness. I so agree with that. Sometimes it’s enjoyable to be a bit depressive, I think.”
Ms Geldof also said that she was full of plans for the future, saying that she wanted to add a daughter to her family, and planned to raise her sons Astala, 23 months, and Phaedra, 11 months, to be the “sweetest kids of all time”.
She said: “The way I’ve been raising them is with pure love. I just have a lot of hopes for them, really, and I hope when they’re older they get to have a bit of the youth that I lost out on when I had them.
“But mainly, in the future, I would love my boys to just grow up to be the best, sweetest kids of all time.
“I would love to have a girl, purely to dress her up. My mum used to dress us in matching outfits to her own and I loved that.”
Interviewer Laura James, who has known Peaches since she was a child, wrote that she seemed ‘full of love’ and with ‘everything to live for’.
Ms Geldof also spoke of her enthusiastic use of Twitter and Instagram, which resulted in well-publicised spats with the people such as Katie Hopkins, saying: “It’s an opportunity for me to flex my intellectual muscle.
“Lots of people underestimate me. I think I’m a lot more intelligent than people believe and I love a debate.
“I can easily shoot down anyone who argues with me. I’ve never been afraid of people. I have the mentality that I give as good as I get. I have a lot of my father in me and I am as stubborn as a mule.”
And she also described how motherhood and domesticity had changed her life for the better.
She said: “It has anchored me in place because before, I lived in LA, in New York and in London. I was just sort of going round, being young.
“I was rootless and having the kids really anchored me in place and changed my life for the better. It meant that I had to take care of someone properly, which I wasn’t doing for myself.”
Ms Geldof was found dead in her family home last Monday.
A post-mortem proved inconclusive, and her family are awaiting the results of toxicology tests, which are expected to take several weeks.
Peaches Geldof Dies
7 April 2014
Peaches Geldof’s celebrity friends are mourning the death of the 25-year-old mother of two.
Just hours after news of Geldof’s death broke, stars like Lily Allen and Sharon Osbourne are reacting and tweeting their condolences.
“My thoughts are with the Geldof’s at this awful time,” Allen wrote today. “I hope they get to grieve in peace. Peaches, rest in peace gorgeous girl.”
Meanwhile, Osbourne tweeted, “Devastated about @peaches_g. Sending condolences & respect to the Geldof family. It’s unimaginable what they must be going through right now.”
Geldof’s model pal Daisy Lowe shared a photos of a broken heart while U.K. celeb chef Jamie Oliver wrote, “Very sad to here about the sad loss of Peaches Geldof aged 25 years old such a shame thoughts and love to her whole family xxxxx.”
Lorde tweeted, “you were a sparkling, lovely person who showed me such kindness. rest easy, peaches.”
Ellie Goulding shared, “Even if you think you’ve got it all figured out, some things still can’t be explained or understood. Two beautiful children. RIP Peaches.”
“My thoughts and prayers are with you,” U.K. director and photographer Blake Wood, wrote on Twitter. “To my fellow creatives whose souls struggle to be here—these days may not be easy but we need you now, the world needs you now. All my loveX.”
Geldof, the second daughter of musician Sir Bob Geldof and the late Paula Yates, was pronounced dead on Monday, Apr. 7, 2014, after police were called to a home in Kent to follow up on a “report of concern for the welfare of a woman.” She left behind a husband, Thomas Cohen, and two sons, Astala and Phaedra.
It has been a great shock to me as I have worked with her many times in the past and my thoughts are with her family and loved ones in this very difficult time. RIP Babe.
