Michael Hutchence’s sister “angry” after learning of secret brain injury
The sister of late INXS frontman Michael Hutchence has revealed that she was “angry” after learning of his injury from his ex-girlfriend, the Danish model Helena Christensen.
Hutchence passed away in 1997, with a coroner ruling that he had died by suicide whilst under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Then, years after his death, it emerged that the INXS man had suffered brain damage after being assaulted by a taxi driver in Denmark two years prior.
This became public knowledge in 2019 after the release of Richard Lowenstein’s documentary Mystify: Michael Hutchence, which obtained a full autopsy report of his death that Christensen corroborated. Lowenstein claimed that Hutchence had asked Christensen to keep the brain injury a secret from his family and the public.
Now in a new interview with The Sun On Sunday, Hutchence’s sister, Tina, said: “I know Michael was so happy with Helena and there was a time when I could not imagine them not being together.”
“But I did feel angry when I first found out about the assault, as I felt it was her duty to say something to his family,” she continued. “There were all these awful stories about Michael after he died, so for Helena not to tell us about the head injury was wrong. She was very close to our parents and could have easily reached out.”
Elsewhere, founding member and drummer of INXS, Jon Farriss, recently revealed that when they decided to continue as a group after Hutchence’s first replacement left, they wanted to do so with a frontwoman.
The admission came in a two-part special episode of the programme Behind The Hits on LiSTNR, which aired on November 18th. It also featured interviews with other former INXS members, Andrew Farriss, Kirk Pengilly and Jon Stevens, who was their lead vocalist between 2000 and 2003.
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