She was subjected to intense media attention and scrutiny, owing to her popularity and her relationships with musicians Bob Geldof and Michael Hutchence.
After the break-up of her parents' marriage in 1975, Yates lived mostly with her mother despite having a closer relationship with Jess, and also had periods in Malta and Mallorca where she was a pupil at Bellver International College, before returning to Britain.
[citation needed] In 1979, Yates began her career as a music journalist with a column called "Natural Blonde" in the Record Mirror, shortly after posing for Penthouse magazine.
She first came to prominence in the 1980s, as co-presenter (with Jools Holland) of the Channel 4 pop music programme The Tube, having been a minor co-host of BBC TV chat shows with presenter Terry Wogan.
[citation needed] In 1982, she released a version of the Nancy Sinatra hit song "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" from the Music of Quality and Distinction Volume One album by B.E.F.
[14][15] In 1985, Yates met INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence while interviewing him for Channel 4's rock magazine programme The Tube.
Yates was unmoved by the manager's request and began to show up at INXS gigs everywhere for the next few years, even taking her young daughter Fifi along.
[17] Yates maintained irregular contact with Hutchence during the intervening nine years and their affair had been under way for some months before their Big Breakfast interview in October 1994.
A paternity test proved that the talent show host Hughie Green, who had died six months before Hutchence, was her biological father.
[31] Soon after Yates's death, Geldof assumed foster custody of Tiger Lily so that she could be brought up with her three older half-sisters, Fifi, Peaches, and Pixie.
[36] Paula included interviews with her friends and social commentators including best friend Belinda Brewin, Nicky Clarke, Robbie Williams, Vanessa Feltz and Grace Dent, and used archive footage of Yates and previously unheard recorded interviews, conducted shortly after the death of Hutchence.
[39][40] In a review for Paula, Lucy Mangan, writing for The Guardian, hailed the documentary as "a glorious celebration of the most witty, flirty woman to ever grace our TVs" and gave the show 4/5 stars.
[43] Gerard Gilbert, writing for the newspaper I, rated the documentary 3/5 stars, adding that he "was left with a tragic sense that Yates's untimely death robbed us of an intriguing second act".