After months of grief, alcohol abuse and bitter custody battles, Paula Yates is at last finding happiness again - all for the love of Tiger Lily...
The worst is finally over. Sporting rosy cheeks, a slick new hairdo and the smile of a woman at ease with her life, Paula Yates steps out at London Fashion Week and shows the world she has at last emerged from the anguish that followed her lover Michael Hutchence's death.
And in her arms is the reson for Paula's new found contentment - the beloved two-year old daughter she bore with Michael, Tiger Lily, who has been the inspiration behind her recovery. For Tiger Lily's sake, Paula has pulled herself back from the brink of despair and vowed to leave the pain behind and make a fresh start.
"Paula is exceptionally well and much happier than she's been since Michael died," her best friend and Tiger Lily's legal guardian, Belinda Brewin, tells NW from London. "She's very healthy and delighted to have all her girls at home. But her main concern is to concentrate on making sure that Tiger Lily is well, happy and okay in every way".
It was being seperated from her little girl for two weeks in February, while legal wranglings continued, that brought home to Paula, 39, just how precious Tiger Lily is - and how hard she must strive to provide her with a stable home.
Michael's father, Kell Hutchence, launcehed custody proceedings last year, because he feared for Tiger Lily's safety as Paula's life spiralled out of control.
Desperate at the prospect of not being able to care for her child properly, Paula pulled out all the stops to get her life in order. She began eating healthily, working out and spurning the alcohol the one-time teatotaller had begun to use to numb her pain. She started making plans for a future career that would provide for Tiger Lily, but leave time to lavish love on her.
Paula even began to build bridges with former husband, Bob Geldof, in her effort to bring calm and stability into her life. Just a year ago, she vowed she would never speak to Bob again. But now that she has been awarded joint custody of their three daughters, Fifi Trixibelle, 15, Peaches, nine, and eight-year-old Pixie (Bob was awarded custody last October, but this has since been re-negotiated), the two are back on speaking terms.
And the efforts have paid off. Lst month, when it was clear she was on the road to recovery, Kell publicly declared that he had only wanted to remove Tiger Lily from potentially destructive influences. "It's all in the past now as far as I'm concerned," he says.
But after being parted from Tiger Lily for a fortnight, Paula was terrified that the child she sees as her last link to Michael would have forgotten her. But she needn't have worried. As soon as Tiger Lily caught sight of her mum, she reached out her arms and said what Paula had been longing to hear: "Love you, Mummy."
Another of Paula's closest friends, Lewis Martin, 42, her former executive producer on the popular British TV show The Big Breakfast, described the tender scene between mother and daughter.
"I've spoken to Paula and she couldn't be happier," says Lewis. "There's a tremendous bond between her and Tiger Lily - the time they spent apart and the fact that there was an ocean between them honestly didn't seem to matter. When they were apart, Paula told me there was a hole in her heart where Tiger Lily should be."
And to mark her new beginnings, Paula has installed a new bedroom for Tiger Lily at her West London home, spending $15,000 on an extension to her own bedroom.
"Paula chuckles and says she's wasted her money," says Lewis. "When she takes Tiger Lily into Mummy's bed to read stories, that's it - the kid doesn't want to leave. And Mummy doesn't want her to!"
Work plans are going well, too. Having turned down an offer to host a chat show on British TV because she feared it would mean too many hours apart from Tiger Lily, Paula is on the brink of starting a whole new chapter in her career. "She's just about to start filming a documentary - I can't say what it's about until the contract's signed - but it's serious TV and a real step forward," Belinda reveals.
It'd all a far cry from the traumas of last year, when Paula's life seemed doomed. Last April, friends said she was "in pieces", weeping from morning till night and unable to go outside. She checked into a residential clinic after a complete breakdown. To add to her despair, she then had to cope with revelations that her real father was not Jess Yates, as she had believed, but the late TV star Hughie Green, a man she had always hated.
She struggled financially, and became embroiled in rows with Michael's family over his $41 million estate. She began drinking heavily and, in July, was checked back into rehab after a cry-for-help suicide bid at her London home.
While there, she became involved in an ill-advised relationship with recovering heroin addict Kingsley O'Keke, 28 - a move that rpompted Kell's custody bid. Paula ditched Kingsley seven weeks later for fear the romance may cause her to lose custody of Tiger Lily. Kingsley then promptly sold his story to the UK tabloid press.
Last November, Paula plunged back into grief when she had to face the anniversary of Michael's death. The INXS lead singer was found hanged in a Sydney hotel room and at the inquest into his death, a coroner found he had committed suicide. On January 22 of this year, the day that would have been Michael's 39th birthday, Paula made a distressing sight, staggering drunk, confused and barefoot around a busy store.
But since then, she has worn the unmistakable look of a woman finally taking control of her life. Three weeks ago, a relaxed-looking Paula was spotted strolling with Tiger Lily in a London park. And now - as our pictures, far left, of Paula with the little girl who has saved her from tragedy show - it seems that the dark days are at last behind her.