UK/FILE: Friends and family attend funeral of Peaches Geldof

Record ID: 596592

  • Title: UK/FILE: Friends and family attend funeral of Peaches Geldof
  • Date: 21st April 2014
  • Summary: DAVINGTON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (APRIL 21, 2014) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF ST MARY MAGDALENE AND ST LAWRENCE CHURCH MEN TENDING TO FLOWERS AND STONE READING (English): "RIP PEACHES X" FLORAL TRIBUTES AND SIGN READING (English): "DAVINGTON PRIORY" MODEL, KATE MOSS, ARRIVING FOR THE FUNERAL DUCHESS OF YORK, SARAH FERGUSON, ARRIVING FOR THE FUNERAL HEARSE CARRYING THE COFFIN
  • Embargoed: 6th May 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Communications,Arts,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA68SFU3KCPHQFDX8CX69PPY1OD
  • Story Text: The friends and family of media and fashion personality Peaches Geldof have attended her funeral on Monday (April 21).
    The 25-year old was the daughter of Band Aid founder and musician Bob Geldof, and sister to Fifi Trixibelle and Pixie and half-sister of Tiger Lily.
    Mourners at the funeral included former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, actress Jaime Winstone and model Kate Moss.
    As the hearse rolled into the church grounds a picture of Geldof, her husband Thomas Cohen, their two sons and dogs was seen on the coffin.
    The service at St Mary Magdalene and St Lawrence Church in Davington, Kent, in southern England was held at the same venue where Geldof married Cohen.
    Cohen is the lead vocalist in post-punk band S.C.U.M and reports in the British press suggest he is due to sell the 1million home he shared with his wife in Kent. The couple had sons under the age of two, Astala and Phaedra.
    The church is also the venue where Geldof's mother, the television presenter Paula Yates, had her funeral in 2000.
    Peaches was only 11 when she lost her mother.
    Yates was married to Geldof from 1986 to 1996 but left him for the Australian rock star Michael Hutchence, who committed suicide in 1997. Yates died three years later from a heroin overdose, aged 41.
    After Yates's death, Geldof brought up Tiger Lily, Yates's daughter with Hutchence, alongside her three half-sisters.
    Peaches' last Twitter post was a photograph of herself and her mother. In an interview with Elle magazine in 2013, Geldof had said that, when her mother died, "I just blocked it out".
    "I didn't grieve. I didn't cry at her funeral. I couldn't express anything because I was just numb to it all. I didn't start grieving for my mother properly until I was maybe 16."
    Geldof was found dead at her home in Wrotham, Kent, on Monday 7 April.
    British police said on Wednesday 9 April that a post-mortem examination proved inconclusive "pending toxicology tests".
    Kent Police said they were treating Geldof's death as a "non-suspicious but unexplained sudden death" and added that investigations would continue after the inconclusive post-mortem.
    "The result of a toxicology report can take several weeks," police said in a statement.
    After Peaches' death her father issued a statement on behalf of the family that said: "She was the wildest, funniest, cleverest, wittiest and the most bonkers of all of us. What a beautiful child. How is this possible that we will not see her again? How is that bearable? We loved her and will cherish her forever."
    He described the family as "fractured so often but never broken".
    Making an early debut in the London glamour and society scene, Peaches wrote articles for British national newspapers from the age of 14, and was often seen partying and clubbing in London's vibrant night scene.
    After becoming a mother she left the party scene behind and at the time of her death was a columnist for the Mother & Baby magazine. In her last column, under the headline "Being a mum is the best thing in my life", she wrote she was "happier than ever".
    "Before having two fat little cherubs under two ... I lived a life of wanton wanderlust," she said. "With fun-loving friends from Los Angeles to London, I was lost in a haze of youth and no responsibilities."
    But, she had become bored of her previous lifestyle but said motherhood had initially left her "friendless" and "alienated and abandoned", she wrote.
    "Now, with a new-found group of mummy mates, both locally and online ... I'm happier than ever. Right now life is good. And being a mum is the best part of it," she said.
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