Geldof’s tragic daughter and how her grieving husband fell for her best friend
TAKE two teenage girls: both the daughters of celebrities, the toast of London, self-proclaimed arbiters of style, and stars-in-waiting.
When Peaches Geldof and Daisy Lowe started hanging out at parties back in 2005, they were both 16, with family backgrounds full of addiction and pain, both trailing a rather gothic showbusiness glamour.
They would demand — and get — up to £5,000 a time just to show up to make a party that bit cooler.
Peaches, of course, reminded everyone of her late, sparky mother Paula Yates, who died in 2000 of an accidental heroin overdose while mourning her rock star lover, Michael Hutchence.
Meanwhile Daisy, all rock-chick fringe and doe eyes, was associated with the ‘wife- swapping’ of London’s fast-living Primrose Hill set, involving her mother, one-time pop star Pearl Lowe, and actors Sadie Frost and Jude Law.
Peaches and Daisy were the nucleus of a new, louche celebrity set, obnoxious at times, but social dynamite.
And even when Peaches married musician Thomas Cohen in 2012 and became a mother to two boys, Astala and Phaedra, for whom she created a country idyll in Kent, the girls remained close, with Peaches refusing to let domesticity blunt her thrill-seeking edge.
When Peaches was found dead in April 2014 of a heroin overdose, Daisy tweeted a picture of a heart broken in two.
A family source said this week: ‘Daisy and Peaches were thick as thieves, and true friends for over a decade.’
Only recently has Daisy felt composed enough to talk about Peaches, telling a magazine in May last year: ‘I think about [her] a lot. She’s very missed. Very loved. And I hope that she is happy . . . happy up there. It’s funny. I end up kind of talking to her. I still think I see her.’
So there is a sort of poignant symmetry in the revelation this week that Peaches’ best friend, Daisy, and her widower, Thomas, have become an item.
The couple were pictured kissing while walking Daisy’s dog in North London. Their embrace follows a Christmas break in Miami, where at a New Year’s party Thomas was pictured on social media soaking in the bath while Daisy was seen from behind in a pair of white knickers.
Although rumours of a romance were denied at first, it is now asserted that their attraction began in October last year.
Also on the Miami trip, along with singer Rita Ora and Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw, was Peaches’ younger sister, Pixie. Crucially, she is said to approve of the match.
A friend said: ‘Pixie gave Daisy her blessing before the trip and joined them in the States to prove she is totally fine with them being together. Everyone just wants to see Tom happy. Daisy has been wholeheartedly welcomed into the fold.’
The source says carefully: ‘They get on really well, and Tom is regarded as one of the family. Daisy is a lovely girl who just wants security and is very family orientated.’
Daisy’s overwhelming desire to be part of a stable family is undoubtedly born of her own fragile childhood. Her mother Pearl, a wild child herself, was a heroin addict, seldom out of the gossip columns.
‘Because of Pearl, Daisy understands what it is to love an addict, and what it is to fear that you might lose them,’ says the family friend. ‘She has said that she worried every day her mum might die.’
Who better, then, to instinctively understand Tom, who gave evidence at Peaches’ inquest that he knew she had been using heroin again and had made her flush a stash of the drug away not long before her death in April 2014. He has been raising their sons with his parents, Sue and Keith, at their home in South-East London.
While Peaches compulsively shared news of the boys via social media, all is silence now. He’s raising them as normally as possible, with the help of his sister Holly, 27, and regular visits from Peaches’ sisters — Fifi, Pixie and Tiger Lily.
Tom is often spotted with the children at parks and playgroups, as well as at art exhibitions run by his mother. His parents, committed Jewish socialists who met on a kibbutz, are dignified people who reportedly asked their rabbi to help them with their grief.
Sue is an artist and Keith a highly regarded social worker. The family were said all to have attended therapy following Peaches’ death.
The romance between Thomas and Peaches started in December 2010 and Peaches talked happily about her infatuation with his ‘ beauty.’ He said: ‘ From the moment we went out . . . I knew I didn’t want to spend a day away from her — really for the rest of my life. I fell in love the first night we spent with each other.’
Their son Astala was born in April 2012 and they married six months later in St Mary Magdalene and St Lawrence church near Faversham in Kent, where Paula’s funeral was held. Phaedra was born the following year.
Five months before her death, Peaches was clean. And in the weeks beforehand, she attended rehab appointments and collected subscriptions for heroin substitute methadone. Yet, as events went on to show, addiction still gripped her.
After her death, Cohen led the tributes: ‘My beloved wife Peaches was adored by myself and her two sons. I shall bring them up with their mother in their hearts every day. We shall love her for ever.’
His courage in the aftermath of her death has been astonishing. He sang the Leonard Cohen song, Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye, at his wife’s funeral, accompanied by family friend Jools Holland. One of his first big social events since Peaches’ death was Nick Grimshaw’s birthday pool party at fashionable Shoreditch House in August last year. Daisy was also there.
Perhaps one attraction for Tom is that while Daisy socialises with the fast set, unlike Peaches, she is not known as a party animal at all.
As she told an interviewer in 2011: ‘If you’re talking about drugs, they don’t agree with me. I’m too sensitive for them.’ She added that her mother was so open about her drug habit that ‘it made it uninteresting’.
This is not so surprising. Pearl’s Camden house was party central, with Sadie and Jude Law, actor Ewan McGregor, and even rival pop stars Liam Gallagher and Damon Albarn all regular visitors.
It was only when Daisy was 15 that Pearl admitted to a romance with Gavin Rossdale, Daisy’s godfather. A court battle and paternity test followed, which proved that he was Daisy’s biological father.
Pearl later admitted relations with Daisy were ‘a bit hairy for six months’. When she moved to the country to escape the Primrose Hill set, Daisy moved in with her grandma. She took her GCSEs at South Hampstead High School and planned to go to university. But then came the friendship with Peaches.
Everyone was in awe of the second Geldof daughter. Pearl recalled: ‘The moment I first clapped eyes on Peaches, I knew she was a star. She gives off this extraordinary vibe, just like Paula did. She is smart as a whip, sexy and beautiful, and just a little bit eccentric, too.’
It was into her orbit that Daisy, hoping to make it as a model after leaving school, gravitated.
When, at the age of 18, Daisy was hired to replace Kate Moss as the face of lingerie label Agent Provocateur, she was cock-a-hoop. That she was dating terribly cool DJ Mark Ronson did her no harm.
Yet despite the glamour — Daisy has modelled for Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton — friends insist she craves a low-key life.
She says she struggles to be thin enough to meet industry demands, and has talked about being turned away from jobs for being ‘too fat’.
She also makes no secret of her desire to settle down.
Her relationship with Dr Who’s Matt Smith, which ended in 2011 after 18 months, is said to have suffered due to her talk about marriage and babies, which spooked him. She tells interviewers that she is ‘very maternal’ and has recently released a cookbook.
Meanwhile Tom is taking a tentative step back into music with the release of a solo album planned for this spring. The title track, Bloom Forever, was written about the birth of his second son, Phaedra.
The question is, will this year of new starts for both of them also be the beginning of a lasting love? What an extraordinary tribute to the teenage friendship between Peaches and Daisy that would be.
‘Daisy understands what it is to love an addict’
His courage in the aftermath has been astonishing