What happened to INXS rock star Michael Hutchence's daughter's money (2024)

She is, unmistakably, the daughter of rock star Michael Hutchence.

There are the dark tumbling curls, the brooding good looks – and, of course, the late INXS frontman's signature boho style.

Today, 23-year-old Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, or Tiger Lily as she has always been known, spends her time in Perth, Western Australia, with her boyfriend Nick Allbrook.

Recent posts on social media reveal the couple enjoy long walks through the desert outback, backyard barbecues and lazy days on the rugged west coast's stunning beaches – an enviable life, and one far removed from the wild hedonism that ultimately destroyed both Hutchence and Tiger Lily's mother, television presenter Paula Yates.

But if you are tempted to assume that Tiger Lily is a wealthy young woman enjoying the fruits of her parents' success – just like her half-sisters, Fifi and Pixie Geldof – then think again.

And while Hutchence was worth a reported £16 million when he killed himself, aged 37, in a Sydney hotel room in 1997, Tiger Lily has received barely a penny – an astonishing state of affairs revealed in a book to be published early next year.

Written by Hutchence's older sister, Tina – Tiger Lily's aunt – it claims the singer would have been heartbroken to see what has happened to his only child and the rest of his family.

'We feel swindled,' she told The Mail on Sunday. 'The estate paid for Tiger's school, nanny and upkeep until she turned 18, but the big payments she was supposed to receive at different stages of her life, when she turned 18 and 21, never arrived. My response to that is, 'How dare they?'

'My brother worked with INXS for 20 years and he wanted to leave money for his daughter and family but none of us have seen a penny,' said Tina, who spent years fighting for her own share of her brother's missing fortune without success.

Heartbreakingly, Tina, 71, a retired Hollywood make-up artist who lives in Santa Cruz, California, hasn't seen her niece since Paula's death in 2000 and it seems, today, she has little contact with her relatives in the Hutchence family.

Tiger Lily has recently complained that she even feels cast aside by her father's former bandmates saying: 'No one acknowledges who I am or my part in the music or the legacy at all.'

But perhaps some degree of dislocation is inevitable. Tiger Lily has had a lot to contend with, after all.

She was born in 1996, into a life of chaotic showbiz excess and raised by two drug-addled parents, both of whom were battling demons that were shortly to consume them.

There was plenty of money around – INXS had sold 60 million albums internationally, and Hutchence is said to have paid cash for an enviable property portfolio including a villa in the South of France, a home in Sydney, a bowling alley and a London townhouse.

But although Hutchence is said to have been 'euphoric' at becoming a father, domestic life for the young family was far from rosy. Hutchence was, by the mid-1990s, heavily dependent on a co*cktail of opium, ecstasy and cocaine, and prescriptions for antidepressant Prozac, tranquilliser Rohypnol and sleeping pills.

He sustained a brain injury in 1992 when he was punched and knocked out in a row with a taxi driver in Copenhagen. It served to escalate his drug use and he was prone to rages and depression.

Tina recalls being shocked by his appearance at the time. 'He was slumped. His face was pale and puffy and his hair dyed a harsh, unbecoming black. His shiny curls were all but gone.'

But it is for Tiger Lily's mother that Tina reserves her most withering criticism.

The showbiz pair had met on Channel 4's The Big Breakfast in 1994 while Paula was still married to Bob Geldof, and Hutchence was with Danish supermodel Helena Christensen; their on-screen sexual chemistry spiralling into an intense, and ultimately toxic, relationship.

Paula, Tina says, was fame-hungry and emotionally unstable and 'the worst possible partner Michael could have chosen'.

'She was a creature of the media, living off it with her columns, television presenting and interviewing roles,' Tina says. 'The 'straying' mother had a combination of explosives packed around her, whether she liked it or not.'

Tina says the Hutchence family, who believed they could provide some stability to baby Tiger, desperately tried to forge a bond with the couple. Tina recalls their mother, Patricia, visiting them and newborn Tiger at Michael's £1 million French villa. 'Paula was disagreeable towards everyone,' she said.

'Minutes after Michael handed Tiger to our mother for her first look at her new granddaughter, Paula snatched her back and headed upstairs to the master bedroom.' In fact, Tina says, Paula was so volatile she once pushed the baby's stroller into traffic in New York in a moment of 'outrageous insanity', something that left Michael 'stressing out'.

In another worrying incident, a concerned friend reported the Geldof children playing with drugs concealed in a Smarties tube in the couple's London townhouse.

Heightening the domestic chaos was the bitter custody battle Paula was waging with Geldof, then an international hero for his work with Band Aid, the 1985 concert which raised millions for the Ethiopian famine and became a defining moment in pop history.

Tina says Hutchence was 'consumed' by the war with Geldof, which left him 'terrified' that he would lose custody of his own daughter, too.

'It was a soap opera in which Saint Bob was pitched against my brother and Paula,' Tina recalls. 'Michael was cast as the bad guy.'

But in the end, it was a far greater tragedy which separated them.

Tina last saw her brother alive at a birthday party she hosted in Los Angeles to celebrate Tiger's first birthday, a day that 'remains a beautiful memory'.

Just a few months later, when Tiger Lily was 16 months old, Hutchence hanged himself at the Ritz Carlton in Sydney, hours after allegedly rowing with Geldof over the phone. Geldof reportedly refused to allow his three daughters to travel to Australia for Christmas – and Paula refused to bring Tiger without them.

Paula would die of an accidental heroin overdose three years later, and Geldof was – as Hutchence had feared – granted custody of Tiger Lily. It was a source of great sadness to the Hutchence family that they then found themselves further shut out of the little girl's life, Tina says.

'I was Michael's closest confidante his whole life. I can't imagine what Michael would feel like to know that Bob Geldof has brought up his child. It's like the final punch, the final insult. Bob was talking to me all the time and very nice and friendly right up to the point Paula died and Tiger went to live with him and all of a sudden his tone changed. I've had no contact with her since Bob decided he wanted her.'

Compounding their grief at losing not just Hutchence but also his daughter, was the ongoing battle to locate Hutchence's assets.

When he died, his will stipulated that a £270,000 lump sum should go to Greenpeace and Amnesty International. The remainder should be split in half, with Tiger Lily receiving one half and the rest going to his family, including his parents, brother Rhett, sister Tina and Paula.

Yet an executor's report sent to the Hutchence family claimed he died with just £266 cash and after the payment of outgoings, such as legal fees, there was nothing left in his estate for beneficiaries.

There is considerable confusion over what happened to the money. Hutchence, who was extravagant with his cash, is said to have used accountant Colin Diamond, a confidant, and other individuals to invest in a series of trusts in tax havens which named Diamond and others as a director. His multi-million-pound property empire was also transferred into the ownership of the trusts. It was reported at the time that this was because Hutchence didn't want his relatives to inherit his fortune.

Tina alleges that, when Hutchence died, the trustees assumed control of his money and 'hid' millions from his family and child – the result being that neither his family, nor Tiger Lily, have received what they believe they are owed.

'We hired the best lawyers in Australia and fought this for nearly three years,' she recalls. 'We did everything but we could never get these people [the trustees] into court in Australia.

'About three months after Michael died we thought something weird was going on. Diamond and his crew were avoiding us. Michael wanted his money to go to his family. He would be appalled if he knew how his family has been treated.'

The family eventually gave up their legal battle, accepting a settlement from the trust for around £200,000, which barely covered their legal fees.

The trustees had argued in the long-running court case that Hutchence had not owned the properties or performing rights and therefore these were not part of his estate.

Diamond has never formally commented on the missing Hutchence fortune. But in a 2010 court case, in which Diamond's company Chardonnay Investments sued the remaining five members of INXS for the revenues from airplay and the exploitation of Hutchence's image, he claimed the singer had transferred all of his rights to Chardonnay four years before he died.

In 1998, when asked where the royalty money was, Colin Diamond was quoted as saying, 'None of your business. That's the point, it's private. Don't you get it? It's private.'

'I can tell you one thing,' Tina insists, 'Michael would want his child to be taken care of.

'So many terrible things have been written about him, about the drugs and the excess, but the Michael I knew was a sweet, kind-hearted, gentle man. He was a well-read man. He managed to stay friends with all his girlfriends. That tells you something.'

It is clear Geldof and his second wife, Jeanne, cared for Tiger as if she was their own. But she has been denied the financial provision which would have set her up for life. Huge payments due on her 18th and 21st birthdays, which would have made her a wealthy woman, never appeared.

A third was due when she turned 25, although it is understood Tiger has already given up on seeing any of it.

Tina's book – to be published in the UK in January called Michael, My Brother, Lost Boy Of INXS – follows the release last month of a documentary about the singer. Entitled Mystify, it features a conversation with US film-maker Richard Lowenstein, in which he recounts how Tiger Lily was handed an envelope containing £500 cash by Diamond, a co-executor of the will. Lowenstein recalls: 'I was saying [to Tiger Lily], 'Maybe [the money is] still going to come to you when you're 25,' and she – when she'd stopped laughing – said, 'We've given up on that.' '

It has led today to Tiger's move to Australia, for a simpler – and cheaper – life on the country's remote and rugged west coast. 'Tiger lives a simple life and does not crave material things,' Tina says. 'She lives a hippy lifestyle, she is a bohemian, just like her father.'

That it is closer to her father's roots is a source of some hope for the Hutchence family, who have not yet given up on their battle to see Tiger again.

Tina's last memory of Tiger was when, aged four, the little girl stayed with her in a hotel in London and ate peanut butter sandwiches.

She says that a bid to bring her to Australia to see Patricia in 2010, when she was dying of ovarian cancer, failed. 'It was my mother's dying wish to see her granddaughter. I called him [Sir Bob] and begged him to allow Tiger to come. I offered to pay for everything. He replied, 'I don't think so, love.' '

According to Tina, multiple letters and cards went unanswered. Tina says she sent items of clothing, photographs and cuttings to Tiger after her mother's death but never received any acknowledgement.

While Geldof has never spoken of the rift with the Hutchence family, friends say he restricted contact to protect Tiger Lily: 'He has only ever had Tiger's best interests at heart,' one said.

But now, finally, there is hope that the rift could be mended. But Tina says: 'It's very sad that she doesn't see her family. She's missing out.

'Tiger has a ton of cousins in Australia and elsewhere who would love to meet her. She has a family who love her. Michael loved Australia and his family. He would be heartbroken to know what has happened. Michael loved her so much.