Assault that destroyed my lover Hutchence – by supermodel Helena
HELENA CHRISTENSEN has revealed for the first time how she witnessed former lover Michael Hutchence spiral out of control after the charismatic rock star suffered a personality-changing brain injury.
The supermodel broke two decades of silence last week to reveal that a ‘dark and very angry side’ of the late INXS singer emerged after he was punched by a taxi driver during a night out in Copenhagen in 1992 and hit his head on a kerb.
When told his brain injury meant he would lose his sense of smell, Christensen said Hutchence broke down, crying: ‘When I have children, I will never be able to smell my baby.’
Christensen, 50, who dated Hutchence in the early 1990s when she was one of the most indemand models in the world, said the ‘intoxicatingly good’ stage performer had been her perfect match. ‘He just seemed so joyful. Sweet, deep and emotional, kind, profound and funny. [It was] total mental and physical chemistry,’ she said.
Everything changed in August 1992 after the quarrel with the taxi driver. Christensen said: ‘He [Hutchence] was unconscious and there was blood coming out of his mouth and ear. I thought he was dead. We got to the hospital and he woke up and was aggressive. They were trying to make him stay but he was physically pushing them away.’ Hutchence went to Christensen’s apartment but was ‘throwing up most of the time’. She urged him to return to hospital but he was ‘aggressively against it’. She added: ‘I would bring him food and he would push it away – he almost got violent.’
The Danish model’s revelations come in a new documentary called Mystify, which premiered on Thursday at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
In it, his former INXS bandmates note how Hutchence’s behaviour changed while they were recording 1993’s Full Moon Dirty Hearts and how they watched as he smashed up a vintage guitar ‘for fun’.
Christensen couldn’t cope with her lover’s mood swings and ended their relationship. ‘Something drastic happened. I was deeply sad, confused and bewildered, but at the same time it couldn’t have continued that way,’ she said.
Hutchence’s other lovers included Kylie Minogue and Paula Yates, with whom he had a daughter, Tiger Lily. The rock star was found dead in a Sydney hotel room in November 1997.
An inquest heard that he had hanged himself – he was just 37.