Why Paula was so much more than her tragic end
Channel 4 launched its Paula Yates documentary by saying it would “introduce Paula to a new generation”. Broadcasters are obliged to say that about everything these days, because they’re fixated on younger audiences. Nobody under the age of 35 will have watched Paula with anything more than mild interest. For the rest of us, though, who remember Yates blazing a trail through the 1980s and 1990s, it was a celebration of one of television’s great presenters.
Charismatic, irreverent, sexy, smart – Yates was like no one else on TV. Then her personal life fell apart – she left “Saint Bob” Geldof for INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, there was a nasty custody battle, Hutchence took his life in a Sydney hotel room a year after their baby was born. Two weeks after that, at her lowest ebb, she learned that the man that she had always believed to be her father, Jess Yates, was not; instead it was another television star, Hughie Green, a man she loathed. Imagine dealing with all of that, while reporters and photographers clamour at your door. She died from an accidental heroin overdose in 2000, despite efforts to get clean and resume her career.
Part of the film addressed the behaviour of the press. It was quite sickening to see Yates’s lawyers begging them not to film her young children leaving the house hours after Hutchence’s death, only for them to do it anyway. Thankfully, times have changed (in Britain at least), but poisonous female columnists who revel in attacking other women haven’t gone anywhere. The one who wrote “Pathetic Paula makes mockery of love and loss”, after Yates began an unwise relationship in the depths of her grief, is still plying her trade.
Yates worked with the media on her own terms. She recorded interviews with Martin Townsend, former editor of OK! magazine, shortly before her death, which were featured here. What a contrast between the vivacious Yates of old and this broken figure.
But the documentary got the balance right by giving us so much of Yates at her best, with tributes from former friends including Robbie Williams and Terence Trent D’arby (who she had a year-long affair with). Perched next to pop stars on The Tube or draped over them on The Big Breakfast bed, she never conducted a dull interview. Flirting was her stock-in-trade but she was no bimbo. Her intelligence shone out, whether talking about feminism, motherhood or the fame that she marshalled so cleverly, until she no longer could. Anita Singh
Reality TV has always smelt disturbingly like Greek tragedy. America’s appalling Milf Manor (Discovery+) pushes Ancient Greek themes to the max. It’s a dating show whose goal is to pair single mothers (aged 44-59) with much younger men (the youngest is 20). And the Sophoclean twist? These buff boys (unconvincingly claiming to be looking for their “soulmates”) are all the sons of the female contestants. So programme-makers were tackling two taboos in one show: intergenerational sex, and sex in close proximity with your child/parent. The whole idea flies scorchingly close to becoming a binge watch, botoxed Oedipus Rex. Or, as my kids would say: Totes Inappropes!
The opener introduced us to the Milfs (google the acronym if you don’t know it – but beware: it’s rude). There was sport-loving Pola (48); South Korea-born heart surgeon, Soyoung (50); and “disco-mommy” of six, Kelle (50). Many felt like sweet, 44-year-old April, who said she’d “given a lot of my youth to raising my kids… I want a chance to do me a little”.
That goal seemed fair enough. But does “doing you” have to mean doing somebody your children’s age? With your own (adult) kid in the next room? I know we’re not meant to judge, and everyone featured on this programme is a consenting adult. But I doubt this show would have been greenlit if it featured older men applauded for feeling up each other’s daughters. And Milf Manor’s attempts to justify its cynical agenda as “you go, girl” feminism felt hollow. Instead of creating a situation in which the women could support each other, the producers cleared an amphitheatre and waited for the blood to hit the sand. Because while they all wanted to get their hands on a young man, these mums weren’t so keen on watching their peers pawing their boys.
Luckily, I have only watched one episode, so I’ll never have to find out whether Kelle beds Pola’s son Jose. Or how Pola reacts. Or if true, TV romance is – as one contestant put it – “all part of God’s plan” for her. Eugh! Honestly. If I had to watch any more I’d be tempted to gouge my eyes out. Helen Brown Paula ★★★★ Milf Manor ★