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PART 10 - Letter to "The Age" - Tina Hutchence (June 2003)

Letter to "The Age"
Tina Hutchence
California, U.S.A.

June 14, 2002

The Age
Mr Michael Gawenda,
Editor-in-Chief

Dear Sir,

I refer to the article "HUTCHENCE RECREATION SPARKS OUTRAGE" in your Tuesday June 3, 2003 edition.

"Britain's TV regulator reprimanded a pay TV program for showing viewers how to recreate conditions that caused rocker Michael Hutchence's death.

The INXS frontman was found hanged from a door in his Sydney hotel room in November 1997 in what the coroner ruled was suicide but family and friends insisted was a sex game gone wrong."

I understand that this was a story directly from the AAP - but doesn't your paper have any integrity? Don't you want to get to the bottom of this and put it to rest? Why not throw the story to an investigative journalist, surely you have one person on your staff who is capable of calling - oh I don't know, perhaps Inspector Peter Duclos, the lead detective in the case, or maybe Dennis Hand, the coroner.

After all, what is in it for these two men to lie and falsify a legal document - a coroners' report?

"Hutchence's girlfriend, Paula Yates, maintained that Hutchence, who was alone in his hotel room, was indulging in auto-erotic asphyxiation, a sex game involving choking to heighten sensation, when he accidentally strangled himself."

I have a copy of Paula's statement. When Inspector Duclos and other Sydney detectives interviewed Paula Yates, she made a long sworn statement in which she focused on how distraught Michael was at not being able to see his daughter, how angry and frustrated he was with Bob Geldof. She stated that he just didn't have any fight left in him. In fact she blamed the whole thing on her ex-husband.

Over the years Paula made an excellent living by selling outrageous gossip. We generally forget that she started out as a gossip columnist. She even had others, publicists and journalist friends plant stories to heighten her stature. In a British documentary in August, 1999 she out-did herself by fabricating a ridiculous and malicious story about Michael's death and she was paid well for it. When Paula needed extra money, she and her "manager" Belinda Brewin came up with the brilliant idea of making a sexual deviant out of Michael. After all, everybody is going to listen to Paula Yates, and what did it matter, Michael was gone and therapy for Tiger was a long way off.

I guess the truth just isn't interesting enough, or maybe people just can't imagine that someone with Michael's celebrity could be so unhappy.

Why don't you consider some of the evidence and see what you come up with? Better still why don't you print the following facts collected by the Australian authorities in your newspaper, and let the public decide for themselves.

  1. Michael had been on a steady diet of Prozac - an anti-depressant, for more than two years without the support of therapy. Two separate British physicians - Dr. Jonathon Boreham, a general practitioner, not trained in psychiatry, had steadily increased the dosage and sent him to a professional in the field with an accompanying letter which follows:

"Michael has asked to see you in conjunction with Paula regarding their relationship problems. I have only looked after Michael for the past year and a half and he was taking Prozac 20 to 40 mgs when he first registered with us, so I am not sure of the original indication for treatment. He may wish to discuss his own problems as separate from his relationship with Paula but I will leave that up to him. He is physically well but fairly stressed in his role with Paula's extended family and his re-establishment on tour with INXS. Many thanks for your help.

-  (signed) Dr. Jonathon Boreham MD.

Consulting Psychiatrist Dr. Mark Collins saw him only briefly on two occasions one month prior to his death and sent him back out on tour with a new prescription for Prozac.

  1. One of the major effects of Prozac especially after prolonged use, is a LOSS OF LIBIDO. Not to mention the studies that have surfaced in the last six years to suggest that there have been many instances where the effects of anti-depressants have actually prompted many people to take their life.

  2. Michael was inconsolable about the way in which he was being treated in the British press.
    He had begged Paula to refrain from leaking ridiculous stories to journalists. Seven months before he took his life he told several in his family,     "I just can't take it anymore" and "London is unbearable, I get sick every time I have to go there".

  3. Michael had stated to the members of his band and management that he did not want to be on that last tour. Not only did he feel that he was mentally in no shape for a rigorous tour, he felt musically he had moved on and the other members were stuck in the eighties. He thought it was way past its' prime. According to one member of his band, Michael was in sad shape and unapproachable by the time the band began their U.S. dates. The stress was such that he had not been able to remember lyrics to many of his own songs while on stage. One fan wrote into U.S. Magazine after Michael died and said that she had attended the last show on the east coast and could not understand how those around him did not see this coming, it was obvious even to the audience that he was in bad shape.

  4. The two people who were in Michael's room that night, stated that he was very, very worried and enraged with Bob Geldof about some legal action that was taking place in London which he thought would determine whether he would see his daughter for Christmas. The two friends stayed with him until 5am to see if the news out of London was in his favor. They left before he found out that indeed he would not be seeing his little girl.

  5. Bob Geldof was not interviewed by law enforcement, we only have a carefully worded statement prepared by his attorney. Who knows what was actually said? I was surprised to read his statement in which, he apparently, in the heat of an argument remembered the conversation word for word. Although the report states that Belinda Brewin was a witness to Bob's conversation with Michael, when in fact Bob was using his mobile phone while standing on a London street corner while Belinda was across town with Paula - so this was impossible.

  6. The guest in the room next to Michael's said she heard him screaming into the phone, apparently in a heated argument.

  7. Michele Bennett, the last person to speak with Michael, said he was distraught, sobbing, tired, and frustrated with his situation.

There are no witnesses to the conversations between Bob Geldof and Michael; and Paula Yates and Michael in those last hours. Paula gave one statement to the Sydney detectives and she came up with another sensational story for a television interview when she was in need of money. And that selfish act haunts Michael's loved ones and disrespects his memory to this day.

Sincerely,

Tina Hutchence