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Sir Bob Geldof has shared his biggest regret following the death of his ex-wife Paula Yates. The Boomtown Rats frontman, 74, opened up about the heartbreaking moment in September 2000 when he learnt his TV presenter ex had been found dead from a heroin overdose. She passed away at the age of 41 on their daughter Pixie's 10th birthday, just six years after they separated.

Now the Live Aid organiser has confessed that he is still haunted by it to this day. The musician confessed he regrets the way he handled informing their daughters - Fifi, then 17, Peaches, then 11, and Pixie - about their mother's demise.

Speaking to RTE Radio 1 this week, he recalled: "When I had to tell my children that their mum had died, it was terrible. I got a phone call, and Paula's best friend said she just found her.

"It was Pixie's 10th birthday that day. And the other two girls [Fifi and Peaches] were there and excited, and Pixie was all dressed up. She was going over to have lunch with her mum.

"I put down the phone as if it were just a phone call, and Fifi said, 'What? Don't tell me mum something-something'. And I said, 'No, no'. I said, 'Go on, open your presents, stop messing around'."

Geldof said he then turned to his partner, French actress Jeanne Marine, and admitted: "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do." After the celebrations came to an end, Bob decided to follow in his father's footsteps after the death of his mother, Evelyn, when he was just eight years old.

Like his father, he decided to tell his children directly about her passing and didn't hide the harsh reality. He went on: "I remembered the directness of my father, and that's precisely what a child needs - tell me exactly, no obfuscations.

"I just went up, and I did what my father did. And they reacted differently. I think I failed, actually. I think I didn't do it right. That's bugged me subsequently."

He added: "I brought them to see her body, which is the thing you do now. And they saw it as an inert thing. Mum wasn't there. And it's like the wakes in Ireland, the person just simply has gone."

Paula, who hosted shows like The Tube and The Big Breakfast, died at the age of 41 from a heroin overdose - the same fate that later claimed the life of their daughter Peaches, who tragically passed away at the age of 25 in 2014.

Bob and Paula tied the knot in Las Vegas back in 1986 after 10 years together, but separated in February 1995 when she found love with INXS frontman Michael Hutchence.

The duo filed for divorce in 1996, and Paula gave birth to her daughter with Hutchence, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, in July that year. When Michael died by suicide in a Sydney hotel room in November 1997, Paula was left devastated.

In 1998, Bob won full custody of their three daughters after Paula attempted suicide. After her passing, Bob became Tiger Lily's legal guardian, and the star later adopted her in 2007.

After the years of heartache, the musician is glad that he took their daughters, and Tiger Lily, to see Paula's body when she died - especially because he wasn't able to attend his own mother's funeral when he was a child.

He said in an emotional interview: "I think that the psychiatrists or psychologists were right... it was the right thing to do. They got to understand, especially Tiger - she got to understand her mum had gone and understood the logic of life and death."

Discussing how he manages his grief today, Bob admitted that he occasionally sees Peaches and is overwhelmed by loss. "It [grief] does erupt. I've been stopped at traffic lights, for example," he said.

"This happened the other day - suddenly Peaches was there. She was with me. And I wept. And being me, you're a bit afraid that the guy in the next car doesn't see you and take a picture of you and all that stuff.

"So you have to be careful. But I wasn't really aware I was weeping. I wasn't sobbing - just tears as she was there. All of these things, I picture it like a memory stick for your laptop. And in that is all the memory, all the grief, all the pain, all the loss, all of that. I stick that in an available compartment of my head."