Written by: Marcus Casey
Last Saturday was never going to be easy for Kelland Hutchence. The Coroner had finally handed down his finding 11 weeks after Kell's son Michael was found hanged from a Double Bay hotel room door. The verdict: suicide. The news, complete with the fact that the INXS singer had consumed a variety of alcoholic drinks, cocaine, Prozac and other prescription pills, immediately shot around the world.
Kell's telephone line was bombarded by the media, and news crews were parked outside his Bellevue Hill home. "What's your reaction?" they asked. None of theirs or anybody else's business, they were told sharply.
The day before the coroner's finding Kell spoke briefly to The Daily Telegraph and he sounded tired, drained, harassed. He stated emphatically he would make no comment. It was easy to understand. When his 37 year old son died, the ensuing public focus revealed what friends already knew: the Hutchence clan was not a happy one.
Crunched by emotion and dazzled by the speed at which events moved, the Hutchence family, and those on the fringes of it, reacted in peculiar ways: agents were engaged to negotiate paid interviews, TV cameras were allowed into Michael's funeral, rumours flourished and dramas, some physical, were played out.
A star adored by millions was dead and left an estate worth an estimated $36 million. As attention receded, the family began sorting out Michael's affairs.
And started arguing.
The Daily Telegraph has learned Michael's half sister Tina and their mother Patricia Glassop are on one side, and Kell, Michael's brother Rhett - and firmly as of this week Michael's partner Paula Yates - on the other.
Patricia Glassop and Tina are shopping around a book about the Michael they say they knew. The other group is upset, because its version is fundamentally different. Glassop has rung Michael's old friends asking about any possessions of his they might have - a chair, a mirror, a motorbike and more - and questioning ownership rights.
As for Michael's ashes, no one could agree on, or how to scatter them, so they were divided into three. One third is in the ocean off Sydney, one third in London and the rest on the Gold Coast. While an unconfirmed report detailed how Michael's estate would be divided up this week, friends of the singer suspect his will may be challenged.
With all that behind him, but still unresolved, Kell wanted to digest the coronal report privately last Saturday. No more interviews for cash, as he'd done previously, no more telling the world what it's like to lose an adored son. But as he tried, everything suddenly became worse and the world closed in even tighter on the retired septuagenarian.
Tina had gone public with accusations about in-fighting in the family after Michael's death. She lashed out at Yates and criticized Kell and Rhett in a magazine interview. Yates' custody battle with former partner Sir Bob Geldof, Tina said, was to blame for the state of mind which led to Michael hanging himself with his belt.
He was boxed in, trapped in the relationship and wanted out, Tina said. She said she felt "a deep void, sadness, anger and incredible pain." Her truth didn't gel with Kell's and he was furious, firing off a fax to Tina while the magazine tried to sell the story to Fleet Street.
In doing so - and especially with her timing - Tina widened the gap even further and strained tense inner relationships to near breaking point, putting half brother Rhett into a position he didn't want to be: making a public reply. One which, ironically, healed wounds in the relationship between Kell / Rhett and Yates.
In a statement released to The Daily Telegraph, Rhett stated that his and Kell's main concern was the security of Tiger Lily and Yates, with whom they have had arguments. "I am deeply saddened and embarrassed by what my step-sister Tina has said publicly about Paula and Michael's relationship," Rhett said in the statement.
"I believe this will hurt Michael's daughter, Tiger, very much, as the woman being so cruelly discussed is her mother - her only surviving parent. I know Michael would be horrified by members of his family publicly speculating about his private life and hurting Tiger in this way. It seems he has become an easy target for gossip mongers, as he is not here to defend himself." After being approached by The Daily Telegraph, Rhett spent 24 hours pondering whether to make a statement. The 35 year old didn't want to fuel the public fire, to indulge in "blame and hatred."
But in his search for the dignity he wanted restored to Michael's memory, Rhett wrote the statement calling on Tina to act from "love and compassion". It was in the hope this act would settle the issue and free it from public curiosity. Was it Tina's right to discuss her feelings about her family? "Put it this way," a close and longtime friend of Michael said this week. "If you added up all the days Michael visited Tina in the last 15 years, you might just scrape together a week. They were not close at all, and I don't think Tina can say she's the one who really knew Michael."
"This makes me so upset, I think it's sick. Michael's family has always been pretty mixed up, and I just wish they'd stop all this and let the poor f...ing guy rest in peace."
Michael was about 12 and Rhett 10 when Kell and Patricia separated. The mother took Michael to Los Angeles where she became a make up artist. At 16 Michael returned to Australia to live with his dad and brother. He soon met the five guys he would go on with to build the mighty INXS - which over 20 years would become his second, and far more cohesive family.
His mother eventually re-married and settled on the Gold Coast where she lives in one of the city's most exclusive apartment blocks with her businessman husband. Like she did this week, Patricia often visits her daughter Tina who has lived in Los Angeles for 25 years.
As Michael's fame grew his little brother Rhett had to deal with it. Such a situation is the stuff of psychological textbooks, and over the years aspects of Rhett's behaviour fit neatly into their definitions. Michael's fame probably affected his younger brother Rhett the most," Kell told the London Daily Telegraph in an interview two weeks ago.
"He was a little bit in his shadow. But look, the thing that probably got us was that problem, that balance you have to find when somebody suddenly becomes very famous. It's just a matter of adjusting a bit."
It was a hard adjustment and many of Michael's friends and colleagues have stories about Rhett. What stands out, however, is that Michael appreciated why some problems emerged, and always tried to help. He was his brother's keeper when needed.
As a photograph on these pages show, the brothers remained friends. The occasion was the 1996 Byron Bay beach christening of Rhett's daughter. One person present said it was a "lovely day". Everyone, including Yates, was relaxed. Michael always kept in regular touch with the father he called "daddio", and loved his mother but did not always appreciate the intense attention she sometimes gave him - and wanted in return. "It's like families that split up - they were always a bit dysfunctional and it wasn't always easy for Michael," another friend said this week.
"Situations would occur. Michael would help Rhett out, he supported his father. Pat had a habit of turning up where she was least expected when the band was on tour. especially in America. Michael would discover his mother waiting at the hotel - he'd get no warning. He didn't like that. At times he's simply put her off for a few days, and then see her when he was ready." The INXS touring juggernaut was a big beast and employed the same road crew for over a decade. All roadies knew about the "Pat thing" and how to respond.
Patricia Glassop - unlike Kell and Yates - has publicly remained quiet since her sons death and hasn't given paid interviews. She was with Tina this week when the magazine article came out, supporting her daughter when family backlash came.
The Daily Telegraph, via a close friend of Glassop, wrote to her this week asking to interview her or Tina, who replied that she was "too distressed" to say anymore. "What so many people don't realize is that these two women have lost a son and a brother," the friend said. "They're devastated, and they're devastated by all the stories going around. They are just so wary about talking to anyone. They have bad days, and then they have really bad days. they'd like people to respect and understand that pain."
Asked what Glassop's response to the interview request was, the friend said: "She'd prefer to save it for the book she and Tina are writing. It's about their whole experience with Michael and his death."
Straight after Michael's death on November 22, Glassop flew to Sydney and engaged deal broker and manager Harry M. Miller to handle funeral arrangements. When it was announced the funeral would be covered live on TV, the remaining five INXS members were the last to find out and hated the idea, as did Kell, Rhett and Yates.
As they left St Andrews Cathedral in a limousine bound for a crematorium, Kell told Glassop he was disappointed by the cameras and other aspects of the funeral. Three independent sources say the grief-stricken mother responded in a physical manner.
In Paula Yates, Michael Hutchence found the woman he was looking for to build his own family. That it required the bust-up of hers and Geldof's - plus their marriage - meant it was never going to be easy.
Especially when Geldof launched a full War Of The Roses style campaign against the pair. A custody battle over Yates' and Geldof's two daughters began. It was this situation that pushed Hutchence over the edge between 10am and 11am on November 22.
Geldof, by telephone, refused to allow Yates to bring Hutchence's daughter Tiger Lily and their two daughters to Australia for Christmas. Balanced on an emotional tightrope and all alone in a hotel room, Hutchence fell off. He left an estate reported by Foxtel Entertainment News this week to be worth $36 million, plus a solid share/property portfolio (for instance, he sold a Paddington terrace in 1995 for $285,000 which he paid $135,000 for in 1985) and possessions scattered in storage, and with friends, around the world.
"In recent years Michael laughed when people talked about the money he made from music," a friend said. "He'd laugh his head off and tell them the truth: that most of his wealth had come from shrewd investments. Colin Diamond and this other guy from New Zealand did a brilliant job."
Glassop surprised several friends and colleagues of Michael's recently with her calls about chairs, mirrors, and other furniture. Did they own that chair Michael left at their place nine years ago, or had Michael given it to them? For 10 years Michael's Sydney bodyguard looked after and paid for maintenance on a Harley Davidson the singer kept here. Glassop asked for it back.
It's unknown whether any parties involved will mount a challenge to Michael Hutchence's will. That it relates to jurisdictions ranging from NSW to Victoria, France, England and the US and elsewhere means any action would be costly and, a senior NSW lawyer said this week, probably unsuccessful. "You have to be able to prove on the balance of probabilities that they guy had lost his marbles when he made the will," the NSW Law Society member said. "It's very difficult to establish that the will was not properly made."
And then any party would have to make applications before legislated deadlines, which in Australian States range from three to 18 months. "He left a will and one assumes the wishes of Michael are contained in it," a close and longtime friend firmly stated. "If they are his wishes, his last wishes, then they should be respected and that should be that."
The Daily Telegraph's London reporter Matthew Pinkey contacted Yates yesterday. Told of Rhett's gesture in his statement, her close friend Belinda Brewin said it was the "best news we've had since Michael died," meaning in the time since. It was "very important" and proof the family could overcome "the string of lies being told about them".
At one point - where Rhett Hutchence writes of his strong relationship with Yates and Tiger - Ms Brewin covered the phone and told a nearby Yates: "Fantastic. This is really good, there's been so much crap around. It's nice to hear some truth for once."
But bitter truths do remain, namely the ultimately sad fate of Michael's ashes which have been physically and spiritually split. Yates, who Glassop has little time for, will tell her side fully in England's OK magazine this week in another paid interview.
Michael's other family - INXS - has meanwhile remained studiously quiet, dignifying their memories. In their one pre-recorded interview - funded by them and conducted by George Negus - they said it was not how, why or what happens next that concerns them. The fact is, Michael, one of their brothers, is dead. "I remember my first reaction was just a tremendous loss," said Andrew Farriss, Michael's songwriting partner.
In life Michael was glue for his small family. In death, it has come unstuck.
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WHO STANDS TO GET WHAT
Estimates of the worth of Michael Hutchence's estate vary greatly, but a source who has seen a document connected with it told The Daily Telegraph this week it came to $36 million. The document could not be verified because the estate's executor, Colin Diamond, could not be contacted. But the reliable source placed full faith in it.
Under the terms, daughter Tiger Lily would receive 50 per cent - $18 million - and $4 million would each go to his mother, father, brother, half sister and Yates. Friends of The Earth and Greenpeace would get $100,000 each.
Copyright The Daily Telegraph (1998)