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Christina Brown Fisher, journalist and traumatic brain injury survivor, speaks with the sister of Michael Hutchence. He was the lead singer of the Australian rock band INXS until he died by suicide in 1997. Tina Hutchence says her brother kept a secret from their family, the band, and his fans. Five years before his death, Michael Hutchence suffered a traumatic brain injury after a taxi driver allegedly attacked him. The blow fractured his skull, resulting in permanent brain damage. His sister reflects on Michael Hutchence’s rise to stardom, and the untreated brain injury she believes was responsible for his abrupt personality change that ultimately contributed to his death.
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What is Me, Myself & TBI: Facing Traumatic Brain Injury Head On ?
Me, Myself & TBI: Facing Traumatic Brain Injury Head On provides information and inspiration for people affected by brain injury. Each episode, journalist and TBI survivor Christina Brown Fisher speaks with people affected by brain injury. Listen to dive deep into their stories and lessons learned.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Hello, everyone, welcome to the show, "Me, Myself and TBI." I'm your host, Christina Brown Fisher. My guest is author, Tina Hutchence. Her book, "Michael, My Brother: Lost Boy of INXS," tells the touching story of her brother's rise from curious and rambunctious young kid to enchanting and popular lead singer of the Australian rock band, INXS. In 1997, Michael Hutchence was found dead in his hotel room in Sydney --- suicide by hanging. Just five years before taking his own life, in 1992, Hutchence suffered a traumatic brain injury. A taxi driver attacked him, fracturing his skull. Tina says her brother was never the same. Thank you for joining me today Tina.
Tina Hutchence:
Oh, you're welcome, Christina.
Christina Brown Fisher:
It's a real pleasure to have you. Tina, you are the oldest of three, yourself and your two younger brothers, Rhett and Michael, and in your book, you talk about how particularly Michael, and very early age, displayed his interest in music and in performing. One account I found a really funny and cute was about his first recording, a song for a Christmas holiday toy. Tell me about that.
Tina Hutchence:
That was so interesting, and how that came about was he was he was about 12 years old, and my mother was at a cocktail party. My parents were very social in Hong Kong. And she was talking to this man who had a large advertising company. And he said to her, you know, do you have any children? She said, "yes, I have two young boys and a girl." She always she would always say a girl, a little older, when I was 12-years older than Michael. But he said, "they don't sing, do either of them sing?" And she said, "well, Michael could probably carry a tune." He said, "I need her, him in the in the studio tomorrow, and I just want him to sing some Christmas songs." And they didn't know what was for. They knew, you know, she took him in and he did very well. He was kind of quiet at first, but she started singing with him to move him along because he was in a, you know, he was in a recording booth with with the headphones on and everything, something he had never even seen before. But he sang three or four different Christmas songs. And they said, "oh, it's, so, it's on, this can be on this recording." And the day came and they said, "okay, it's out." And they went everywhere, all over town looking for this recording, and nobody had heard of it. And finally somebody said, "oh, it may be that, that little disc that goes into a toy.? And she brought out this tiny Santa that had a slit in its stomach, and you pushed, your puts and there's Michael singing.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Do you remember what songs he was singing on the track?
Tina Hutchence:
Oh, Silent Night, ah, you know, the normal...
Christina Brown Fisher:
The traditional Christmas songs, yeah, and you mentioned Hong Kong, and I think that's something that was revelatory for me in reading the book, was discovering how much you and your family had traveled at such a young age, and Michael had traveled in many ways all over the world long before he had started touring.
Tina Hutchence:
Uh huh, yeah, yeah. My dad was my stepdad, but yeah, he was always, he was changing jobs a lot, and he loved to travel, and he just started taking these jobs that would move us around. I mean, I went to so many schools I can't even remember. But the boys, they spent most of their, well, the first eight- or nine-years Michael went there when he was five. So, he was 12, 12, or 13 when he left. So, they did most of their schooling in Hong Kong. And then when he arrived back in Sydney, it was a shock for him because Hong Kong, it's the colonial place. It's, it's you know, the colony was very British, and things were very different in school and the children were different. And he arrived back in Australia with this accent because when you live in Hong Kong, especially as a child, you get this. It's called an international accent. So it's a little bit American, a little bit British, because those, most of the people over there are either British or American. And so the kids made fun of him. And, you know, until this one boy walked up to him and said he would, you know, he said, "just hang around with me, because, you know, they're really bad, especially if you have an accent. You know, you're different. You're wearing a different uniform. And I've got this friend and he's really tall and the kids are afraid of him." So, and that was Andrew Farriss that walked up to him, and he did have this friend.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Andrew Farris becomes his first friend?
Tina Hutchence:
Yes.
Christina Brown Fisher:
When he moves to Australia?
Tina Hutchence:
Yes.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Oh, what a friendship that would become.
Tina Hutchence:
Yeah, who would know, huh? So yeah, they were fast friends.
Christina Brown Fisher:
And you mentioned Farris and of course the Farris brothers are critical. They are the founding members of INXS. Michael was still in high school when he connected with them. Of course, not knowing at the time that they would form INXS, but looking back at that time, and knowing who Michael was, is there any surprise in seeing the success that your brother and the band would later achieve?
Tina Hutchence:
Well, the surprise was that Michael would get out in front of people. I mean, he was not, he was a very sort of fun-loving kid and a very easygoing kid. He was pretty wonderful that way. But to actually get out in front of people, I once put him in, while we were in Hong Kong, he was about eight years old, I put him in a children's fashion show that I was, had put together. And on, and he first he'd stood back. I said, "it's time. You've got it, it's your time to walk." And he, he really did. And I pushed him. I pushed him onto the stage. And so, and, you know, he started walking. and then pretty soon he was right into it. I mean, he turned around, he smiled at the people. But to actually get up on a stage, it never occurred to me he'd sing. I hadn't heard him sing. So that was quite a shock. It really wasn't a surprise to me because he had now found something that he loved. And up until then, all I saw him doing was writing poetry, you know, and I, the teachers would keep telling him, you know, "I mean, you're not going to make a living writing poetry."
Christina Brown Fisher:
Little did they know.
Tina Hutchence:
They were wrong. But yes, but, you know, singing, I, I'd had, no, I mean, he didn't sing around the house or anything. But they, yes, he, he would call me every now and then and tell me what they were doing. Next thing it was right, right as he was finishing school, they'd all finished high school except Johnny, the young Farris, the drummer and his parents, their parents decided to go back to live in Perth, which is way the other side of Australia, to Sydney. So, they were so determined because Johnny was showing signs of being a terrific drummer then. I mean, the Farris boys were brought up as musicians. They, they always were musicians, so they decided they'd wait till the last day of school, and they took off and Johnny did, finished off the rest of his year while they were in Perth, and the rest of the band just stayed there. They would, they started writing then. That's, that's when Michael really started writing. And, and they also did some gigs, you know, they'd grab Johnny from school on Friday afternoon, and travel way up the east side of, in terrible areas. I mean it was where, it's where all the mining is getting done. So, these mining towns, they, it's just all men and, and they're just, they just come off, all they want to do, is do some hard rocking, and a lot of drinking in a bar every Friday night and Saturday night, and then they have to go back out again. So, it was pretty rough mob, and Michael, with his accent slightly different, did not speak with an Australian accent. To them he seemed effeminate.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Hmm.
Tina Hutchence:
So being in a place like this where he was very proper, did everything on stage, you know, jumped around just the way we see, saw him later on. But they were very suspicious of him, the people who frequented these bars. But he figured, well, if he could get through that, he could get through anything, you know? It was pretty rough, not easy, but after approximately nine months, John finished school and they came right back to Sydney, and just started their onslaught right away, just started making up fliers and putting them around, speaking to people, you know.
Christina Brown Fisher:
They were very focused?
Tina Hutchence:
Very focused, they just knew because they'd been already been writing, Michael realized he did have a voice. He didn't know it was as good as it really was, he had no idea. And they were all great musicians. Though, really, this was, this was it, there was nothing else for them. And when it came to getting out there, they just decided they just would get in this great big minivan. And with all their instruments, one roadie who drove and they just, I mean from Melbourne to Sydney --- we don't have, especially back then, we didn't have freeways. So, it would take it would take 12 hours. They go all the way down there and do a gig and come back. I mean, they were happy to do that, just to be on stage.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Michael Hutchence and INXS were household names by 1992, racking up awards all over the world following hits like "Need You Tonight," "Never Tear Us Apart," "New Sensation." The "Me, Myself and TBI" studios were rocking two "New Sensation" earlier this afternoon. But that year would also mark what you considered the beginning of the end. What happened in '92?
Tina Hutchence:
Around April or May of '92, he was in Denmark with Helena Christensen, his girlfriend. They were staying at her apartment. She said, let's go get some takeout. So they had just picked some takeout up, and he was standing on, a, well, just he wasn't quite on the footpath, you know? He was standing there, he was just going up the footpath, and this cab came around the corner and, you know, the streets over there were very, very tiny, and he couldn't get past Michael, and Michael seemed to be taking too long, to, because there were people there. He was trying to get onto the footpath and the cab driver came to a screeching halt, got out of his cab, went straight up to Michael without any like, no yelling, or anything. He just went up and punched him. Like a, I think they call it a soccer punch.
Christina Brown Fisher:
A sucker punch?
Tina Hutchence:
Yeah, yeah, sucker punch. And Michael was just I mean, he's standing there with food in his hands. Michael went straight back, hit the back of his head, fractured his head. And it did damage to the olfactory, which is up on the front left side. Which right away he lost his senses of taste and smell. He was taken to the emergency. And he was having trouble because, you know, he wasn't speaking the language. Helena was trying to help him, and, um, he just, they did X-rays and so forth. But, you know, the things that they do, something like that doesn't show up, in an MRI or anything. So, he insisted he wasn't going to stay the night. They actually wanted to keep him there. And he said, "no," he's not. He right away was just angry. And, and so he went back to Helena's apartment and there he stayed for three weeks. She, she tells me that he didn't, um, he kept saying, "no," he, he didn't want to eat because he couldn't taste it. He was very angry. He didn't he just wasn't himself, and he just stayed in the bedroom all the time. And he didn't really know what kind of damage he had done until he went to London sometime later and actually spoke to a doctor in London.
Christina Brown Fisher:
You do talk about that in your book, about a month or so following the incident, Michael ended up seeing a specialist. Do you know what the doctor told him?
Tina Hutchence:
I, I don't know exactly what the doctor told him because he was very quiet about that. He didn't want to talk about it. I would call him, and he would be very short on the phone, which was not like Michael at all. He just, he just wanted to dismiss it. So, we didn't know a lot about it. But apparently, you know, he, he did tell him he'd sustained a pretty bad injury, and Michael obviously was asking him what he should do, and all he did was put him on downers because that's what they were doing then. They didn't know a lot about head injuries. And if you were walking around, you seemed okay, so, maybe you're a little upset, but, you know, so, take a Prozac. When I called him because I was worried about him. I mean, we kept in contact very closely. He would call my mother probably once a week. She would call him if he didn't, and, um, he usually was so excited to speak to any of us, and he would be until you asked about the accident or what happened.
Christina Brown Fisher:
How did you find out about the accident?
Tina Hutchence:
It was, wasn't until a couple of weeks later he told my mother, and she asked me to call him because she knew that he didn't always tell her everything. But he didn't want to talk about it to me. He said, "oh, it's fine. It's nothing. It's a bump on the head, you know."
Christina Brown Fisher:
And is that what you thought?
Tina Hutchence:
That's what I thought at the time. Wasn't until we got into maybe, you know, six months later and he was being, he just wasn't himself. And when I say he wasn't himself, what I mean is Michael was a very easygoing guy, very easy going. You know if you changed plans on him, "oh, well, okay," you know? He stayed close to his family, as I say, and he was in and out of L.A. where I was living all the time, you know? And he'd call and we go to dinner, and he'd take my children to whatever, you know, um, and he'd come over. He always asked for a baked dinner, an Australian baked dinner. Um, and, but he, we noticed that sometimes we'd hear that he was in town, and he didn't call.
Christina Brown Fisher:
And that was odd to you?
Tina Hutchence:
Very odd. I mean, yeah.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Why was that odd?
Tina Hutchence:
I mean, he never came into L.A. without calling me. I just knew that. So, this seemed, it's like. "what, what happened? What? Why isn't he, he's sort of pulling away from the family or something." I mean, there was one instance that the band was in town, and I called him, and he said, "oh, sure, the you know, the tickets will be at the will call and blah, blah." And I was taking my daughter and like five of her little girlfriends and, and I called him and said, "will you be available before the show?" And he said, "no." I just, you know, I was sort of pang of disappointment, and I didn't know what was going on. But we went to the show and afterward he came out and I said, "how about some time with your, your niece?" And he spent a little time and then he left. So, the very next day I called him at the hotel. I first sent a letter down by courier and called him, and then he called me back and said, "I want you to come down to the hotel right now. We need to talk. You've got some crazy stuff in your head."
Christina Brown Fisher:
Because you had called him out?
Tina Hutchence:
Yes. I said, I think you're getting a little full of yourself for something which is so unlike you.
Christina Brown Fisher:
That's what you saw. The change in his behavior to you came off as arrogance?
Tina Hutchence:
Exactly. I mean, when did it come to where, oh, he didn't know us all of a sudden? That's very strange, you know?
Christina Brown Fisher:
And how did he respond?
Tina Hutchence:
He said, "that's ridiculous. You come down to the hotel. This afternoon, the two of us will talk." And I went down there. And we spent about three hours thrashing it out. And he, I swear he would say he didn't know what I was talking about.
Christina Brown Fisher:
He didn't remember how he had behaved?
Tina Hutchence:
He didn't remember. And he didn't think he'd been rude. I said, "you didn't even acknowledge your family. What's wrong with you?"
Christina Brown Fisher:
That was completely out of the ordinary for him?
Tina Hutchence:
Oh, that would never happen. Never. And I noticed, actually, that night before that the whole band wasn't around talking together. He was very much separate from the band, too.
Christina Brown Fisher:
And that was unusual?
Tina Hutchence:
Unusual, yeah. So, we sat there and talked and he still, you know, he said, "no, I'm just busy, you know? And, and I, I didn't think I was dissing you or anything. And, you know, it gets this a lot of pressure and it's mostly on me. I have to do all the interviews. Nobody wants to interview the other guys. I'm always in there. So, while they're off playing golf, I'm doing interviews, and then I'm on the stage that night. You know, it's just too much." I said take time off.
Christina Brown Fisher:
But these were things that he was already doing prior to the injury, though?
Tina Hutchence:
He was, absolutely.
Christina Brown Fisher:
And it hadn't weighed on him before like this?
Tina Hutchence:
Right, he'd never said anything before. You know, it was just, it was fine. He'd make jokes about it, "the guys are playing golf and I'm sitting in a hotel room. You know, they're sending one interviewer in after another. And so, I feel like I should be getting more," but he'd joke about it, you know? And, um, so, well, I, I assured him that, you know, there was something very strange and that he wasn't, he just wasn't, being his happy self. He just absolutely would not buy it. And he changed the subject. He said, "hey, it's your birthday tomorrow." I said, "oh, yeah, I didn't even think you'd remember." And he said, "yeah, I got something great for you." He said, "oh, you'll love this jacket." And it was some, oh, I can't even remember. It was a designer jacket. I still have it. I love that jacket. But I wasn't convinced, and I wasn't happy about that afternoon. He was being so, ah, normally he would have this smile. You still would do the smile and a big hug. He said, "just hold on to me." But he then got very serious and very defensive. He was defensive for most of the time. And I just, this, just something wrong, you know?
Christina Brown Fisher:
Did you make the connection, though? Were you ever thinking that this change that I'm seeing in Michael could potentially be linked to this accident that resulted in a brain injury?
Tina Hutchence:
Um, I didn't really, no. I'd never heard about anything like that. And he seemed fine. You know, he said, he was fine, and he was working, and he didn't have any trouble with, you know, his poetry and, and, uh, songwriting. And so, I, no, I didn't, and, and even when he died, I didn't.
Christina Brown Fisher:
It's been reported, Tina, that his girlfriend at the time of the attack, former supermodel Helena Christensen, swore to secrecy about the injury that left him with permanent brain damage. Why do you think it was important to him that no one know?
Tina Hutchence:
I think he was afraid that people would think he'd lost what he had. He didn't quite know what he had, and that, when I say that, I mean that person that we saw on stage, it was the person we would see. That was him, you know, that he, he had this, he did have charisma, it was just something in him that made people want to speak to him. He didn't have to be Michael Hutchence, a vocalist on the stage, to have people come to him. He just had that certain magnetism. But I think he didn't understand it. And maybe he thought he'd lost it. Since his mind was full of lots of things, you know, with, with this injury. I was in the, ah, in his villa in the south of France. We'd, we'd go there for Christmas, the whole family. We had the best Christmases there. He loved it. He loved to entertain. He loved to cook. And even when he told me he'd lost his sense of taste and smell when he was cooking, he'd still put something up under his nose, if the wine, or, you know, a taste, it was like automatic, but I would see a sadness there. If you really watched him, you'd see a sadness, because that never came back.
Christina Brown Fisher:
I'm wondering, Tina, how would you make sense or explain to yourself what you saw in this new Michael, this Michael, who had made such a departure from the easygoing, kind of laid back fun guy? How did you reconcile these changes?
Tina Hutchence:
I guess he kept telling me that he was under a lot of pressure. I think he; you know, he was living a very fast life. Relationships in the band weren't very good at that time, um, partly, Michael was getting tired of doing the same, what he said, was, you know, the same old songs, the same style. I mean, you think about, you know, we love these songs, but when you're up there singing every night, the same set, it's, it must get hard. He felt that, the, yes, he couldn't get the, the band to move into the nineties, you know? And, um, he had a lot of offers to record with other people, not that would make him leave the band. He still loved INXS. But what it, what it did was, you know, he couldn't take those offers. He wanted to try, you know, different singing styles. He knew he could, and he could do it. And he wanted to try writing with someone else, just, you know, just to branch out and see what the possibilities.
Christina Brown Fisher:
So there was a lot of frustration?
Tina Hutchence:
A lot of frustration on that level. He was getting very tired of the, the, you know, supermodel thing, just the lifestyle, you know, just following Helena around when he wasn't, because INXS wasn't touring as much at that time. So, that left him with a lot of open time that he wanted to just spend at home, you know, and write and so forth. But Helena wanted him to come with her. So, um, and he did move to Lon, he, well, he didn't move to London, but he got a place in London. So, he was spending more time there because Helena was doing a lot of stuff in London.
Christina Brown Fisher:
But then eventually that relationship broke apart and he was then involved with Paula Yates.
Tina Hutchence:
Well, Paula Yates, you know, his relationship in London started while he was with Helena.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Okay.
Tina Hutchence:
And that kicked off a whole lot of other problems, you know.
Christina Brown Fisher:
So did you see the combination of the conflict with the band, relationship conflicts, did you, did you rationalize to yourself, "well, okay, maybe the Michael that I'm seeing, this, this Michael, who is sometimes short, sometimes not as easygoing as he used to be, did you see those things as the reason why he had changed so drastically in his behavior? Is that how you explained it to yourself?
Tina Hutchence:
At first I thought he'd changed because INXS had gotten so big, and in particular, Michael, Michael was the face of INXS. There was a bit of jealousy in the band for that reason. But I think most people want to interview the lead singer, but they didn't see it that way, it was supposed to be, you know, one for all. And so, and then he did get into a lot of, he had a lot of spare time on his hands. I believe he was getting into some different types of drugs that I, I, didn't I, he and Rhett always kept that kind of thing away from me. But it was, I was not stupid, I know. Um, yes, he was trying other things, and he was spending time in London, and he, he met up with Paula Yates.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Paula Yates was married to Bob Geldof, who was widely known for his connection to Live Aid. She'd been married to him, had children with him. They were in the middle of a divorce, a very contentious custodial battle, and that relationship impacted her relationship with your brother, and the child that she had with Michael?
Tina Hutchence:
That's absolutely fair to say. That was probably the worst person he could have been with at that time with the brain injury. I mean, so, it was such a contentious relationship.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Michael had been a front man and the star of INXS for many years. They had toured around the world multiple times on different albums. I certainly remember the Kick album, and all the hits that one generated. But in your book, you talk about how the combination of where he was at with the band, in terms of looking outside of the band for growth and new opportunities, and also where he was at with the relationship with his child's mother, Paula Yates. The combination of all of these things you say in your book he could handle, if not for brain injury, with a brain injury, though...
Tina Hutchence:
Yes...
Christina Brown Fisher:
It was the worst possible combination?
Tina Hutchence:
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, he could not hear the band. I mean, I was at a couple of shows and I, he, he sort of slid over some words, a couple of times.
Christina Brown Fisher:
What do you mean, slid over?
Tina Hutchence:
Well, he would, he would be singing a song and he'd go, he'd, he'd go into, you know, between the chorus, he'd go off onto a different line. He was forgetting the lyrics. And I asked him about this, you know, I went back. I didn't want to make him crazy. I mean, at that stage I was starting to sort of tiptoe a little bit around him. The way he explained it was that he goes off somewhere else in his head sometimes because he's sick of being on stage and singing the same, same songs.
Christina Brown Fisher:
But did you think that was the real reason, or did you think there was something more to it?
Tina Hutchence:
No, I felt that he really was forgetting, but he wouldn't own to that.
Christina Brown Fisher:
He wouldn't admit it.
Tina Hutchence:
No, and nobody in the band said anything.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Well, they didn't know about the brain injury?
Tina Hutchence:
Yeah, yeah.
Christina Brown Fisher:
They may have seen, it's possible that they would have seen his behavior, as, you know, "he's the lead guy, he can kind of do whatever you want." No one's making the connection that it could possibly be linked to this brain injury because no one knows about it.
Tina Hutchence:
No, absolutely, that's right, he was keeping it quiet. They knew, he'd, oh, hit his head, but he didn't, you know, there was nothing else, he --- they thought he was being full of himself.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Did he ever talk about, Tina, getting the sense of smell back? Was that permanent, the loss of smell and taste?
Tina Hutchence:
I was on the phone with him right after Tiger was born and he said, "I'm cradling her right now, but you know what, I can't even smell that wonderful baby smell.”
Christina Brown Fisher:
That must have been heartbreaking.
Tina Hutchence:
It was heartbreaking to hear, and was heartbreaking to, ah, I, just, it was horrible. I just know being on the phone, it was like we were crying together. He just, that meant so much to him.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Yeah, you mentioned in the book, Tina, about coming across article that someone wrote about their own history of traumatic brain injury, and realizing their experience reflected what you had seen in Michael. How so?
Tina Hutchence:
Yeah, Amy Zellner wrote that, um, she's wonderful in writing, she's written a couple of books on TBI from her own experience. When I read that, I read it over a couple of times and something just like a light bulb went off.
Christina Brown Fisher:
What stood out to you?
Tina Hutchence:
The way she would say that, how she would forget things, that, that stood out to me. And, I just thought about Michael, you know, forgetting his lyrics to his own songs. And then she talked about how, you know, most doctors don't even acknowledge this. That there are plenty of football players and so forth, and they're only starting now to see, and to see this is a real thing.
Christina Brown Fisher:
So this article starts you putting pieces together?
Tina Hutchence:
Yes.
Christina Brown Fisher:
What were the pieces you started putting together?
Tina Hutchence:
Well, the fact that Michael's um, his, his personality had changed. She had talked about that. And so I thought, "yes, he's had changed too." But he just, just sort of, you weren't sure who you were going to see today. The fact that she, she lost some friends because they wouldn't believe it was a real thing. They kept thinking that they kept saying "she's, you know, get over it, that accident was a year ago, two years ago." And she said, "that's not how traumatic brain injuries work. They're with you now." You can, some people their whole personality changes completely the rest of their life. They are not the same person. And I thought about that, and thought about the fact that, you know, the band was treating him differently because they couldn't understand him, and how I had actually treated him differently. I'd been angry with him, you know? And I thought, "that must be, that's obviously the reason." Because how could somebody as sweet as Michael change that much? And he didn't do anything about that, that injury. He never went to anybody, after speaking to Helena, after speaking to other people around him, his management. He never went to anybody to talk about this, you know, what was happening to him, just that everything was driving him crazy, that, you know, he can't make people happy, and, and what was, he hadn't changed. What's wrong with everybody?
Christina Brown Fisher:
Richard Lowenstein, a collaborator of INXS, he had directed some of their videos and later a documentary about Michael. Explain his role in helping you understand what happened to your brother. He had the autopsy investigated?
Tina Hutchence:
He did, where with me I threw it away, cause I didn't want to read it. He took it to somebody who, who is an expert on this, and understands what they're talking about that's going on in the brain. And she said, "look, we have found," I mean, it was different back then in the nineties, "but we have found that people with this kind of injury, sooner or later," when I'm reading this, "this person was going to take his life anyway." That it would be very unusual that would, he would have to have a lot of people around him. He'd have to have a lot of support not to take his life. And he didn't have that. He was just treating it as "got this, you know, this bump on the head, and I'm crazy, the band is nuts, and I don't want to do that anymore. I want to do different music and they won't let me."
Christina Brown Fisher:
It's, you know, it seems to me that a lot of loud noise, bright lights, touring, lack of rest, all of these things make for a disaster, particularly for someone who is post brain injury.
Tina Hutchence:
Oh, absolutely, brain injury, those are the things, ah, loud noises, weird lighting and yeah, the just, just being on tour with a lot of people around you, people shouting at you, wanting you all the time. Those are the things, the main things that can make you crazy when you have, a, you should avoid at all costs. He was doing exactly what he shouldn't have been doing and he didn't want to finish the tour and he said he would see me in Australia.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Do you recall, Tina, how you found out about his suicide?
Tina Hutchence:
Yes. Michael was in Los Angeles. He left on the Sunday night. He got to Australia on the Tuesday. I'd been seeing him in Los Angeles when he called before he was leaving, he just before he called off, he said, "I really don't want to go. I just don't want to get that flight" I said, "Don't. Other people call off shows." He had six more shows in Australia. Other people take time out. You know, a band, somebody gets ill, somebody's wife gets ill, "you can put these off until mid-year or something. Take some time. You need it. 'No, I can't let anybody down,'" he said.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Looking back, knowing what you know now, what is it, what is it you think you may have done differently? Do you think you would have been perhaps more aggressive about pushing him into being seen by a medical team and getting treatment for this?
Tina Hutchence:
Well, I didn't have all the information with me at the time, so, I don't get upset with myself. I sometimes think that I shouldn't have been so easy going with him on those little last conversations. So, I just told him, "I look forward to seeing him in three weeks," and, and he left and so...
Christina Brown Fisher:
That opportunity never came.
Tina Hutchence:
That never came because that was Sunday night for me and then the following Friday night I came home to a message on my machine from Rhett and it was, um, "call me, don't, don't put television on. Don't talk to anybody. Call me as soon as you get in. Just don't talk to anybody. Just, please call me. I'm at Mom's."
Christina Brown Fisher: Right, what would you say to the sister, the mother or the brother of a loved one who has seen a dramatic change in behavior and somewhere in that loved one's history, they know that they suffered some sort of head injury.
Tina Hutchence:
Right, I would say to somebody, who, who can see changes in their loved one and they know they've had an injury to the head, they insist. They insist they'll take them to the doctor. So, go with them, "let's look into this a little more. Because you may not notice changes in yourself, but we see changes. Do this for me. Just, you know, placate me." You know, I would have done that had I known. You know, mostly the problem with all of us in the family is we were in different countries. You know, we would catch, and sometimes when I'd want to talk to Michael about anything he'd say, "nah, let's just have a good dinner. And, you know, I'm only here for three days," And, you know, so, that is, a that's a very different situation to what most people have. But, you know, if you're in a position where you can speak to your loved one, go with them. Just insist, and, and if that doctor says, "no, I don't see anything." But, you know, you have a feeling, you can see changes, go to another doctor.
Christina Brown Fisher:
Thank you so much Tina. Tina Hutchence, her book is "Michael, My Brother: Lost Boy of INXS." Thank you for joining me today Tina.
Tina Hutchence:
You're welcome. Thank you very much. Thank you, Christina.
Christina Brown Fisher:
To order a copy of the book, please visit the Me, Myself and TBI website.