“I’d known Michael when I was younger. And I’d done, actually, with Richard Lowenstein an INXS music video. You know, and it was the song that I think broke them in America, What You Need. But when I went it to do the photo of him it was really in the dark. Paula was there, they were living together with all her kids in a house in West London. There was something about the whole situation that didn’t feel quite right. You know, they were sort of under siege, you know there was all that kind of press, really awful kind of attention that the English press are very good at doing. Also they were in the bitter battle with Bob Geldof, and he was quite vocal about that. I mean later I found out kind of what was going on, and the way he talked about it, he felt like he was embattled.
I think that photo’s really good. I don’t know why I would put it as one of my favourites but in a way it’s a really powerful photo and I think it also’s almost like a prediction. I mean he was extraordinary as a performer, as a talent and he was extremely charismatic, I mean, he was incredible. You know in a way there’s a kind of a Christ-like feeling to that photo, you know it’s almost like he was the sacrificial lamb or something ‘cos I think there was a real purity and naivety to Michael, and he was really a nice person. But he was kind of exploited I really feel. It’s sort of a sad photo and it’s quite hard, that photo, there’s something quite gritty about it. But yeah, he was a beautiful person. A beautiful person that shouldn’t have ended up dead when he did.”
- Polly Borland on Michael Hutchence for the Australian National Portrait Gallery, 2017
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