Pete Doherty has welcomed documentarian Louis Theroux into his quaint Normandy home for a look inside his new, almost unrecognisable, life for his latest BBC Two series. In it, the Libertines frontman opens up about his wayward past - from his drug-fueled antics to his wild love life.
The Can't Stand Me Now hitmaker, 44, resides in rural France with his wife and Puta Madres bandmate Katia de Vidas, and their six-month-old daughter, Billie-May. While he is now mostly sober, having given up drugs for good in late 2019, there is no denying his rock 'n' roll lifestlye has had a lasting and detrimental effect on his health, as he tells Louis: "You are looking at a very sick man. I've battered it, haven't I, I've f***ing caned it.
"The heroin and the crack... I surrendered to that, and then it was cocaine and the smoking and the alcohol, and now it's cheese and the saucisson, and the sugar in the tea." By 2002, the band's album Up the Bracket had turned them into mainstream indie stars, but less than two years later, Pete got kicked out of the band for abandoning rehab amid a spiralling drug addiction.
Years of turbulence followed, from an explosive relationship with Kate Moss to a string of arrests and failed rehab stays and the tragic drug deaths of some of those closest to him. The episode, as part of the Louis Theroux Interviews series, touches on his troubled social circle from his stardom heyday, as Pete is forced to respond to accusations over Mark Blanco's suspicious death in 2006.
Ahead of the anticipated interview airing tonight, we take a look at the saddening shock deaths of those close to him that prompted his exit from the spotlight and what happened with his turbulent relationship with legendary model Kate Moss...
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Kate Moss
The unlikely couple met in January 2005 at Kate's 31st birthday party and had planned to marry in the summer of 2007. Pete famously drew a picture of them using his own blood, which sold for £5,000.
Pete Doherty and Kate Moss dated from 2005 until 2007 (WENN)But their split was an acrimonious one, with the star accusing his ex of burning his beloved teddy Pandy - claims she has never responded to. Their separation was all over the press, with Kate telling the Mirror: "I wish I’d never met him. He’s a user in every sense of the word."
Glastonbury 2007 was the last time they stepped out together, however he claimed to have clandestine meetings with the model. In Pete's 2022 Memoir, he noted that there wasn't "one specific incident that finished the relationship." Then in 2012, when Kate was married to The Kills star Jamie Hince, Pete claimed she called him out of the blue to make peace and check on his welfare.
“I got a call which came as a surprise as we haven’t exchanged a word since it ended. And believe me, it ended nastily," he told the Daily Mail. “But she was friendly and just asked me what I was up to. She wanted to know why I hadn’t written any songs recently and whether I was still taking drugs.
Pete said his romance with Kate 'ended nastily' (Splash)
Pete Doherty, front right, and his best friend Carl Barat founded The Libertines (Publicity Picture)“She told me that despite everything that had happened between us, she was still rooting for me and that was nice. It means a lot to me to know that." Also in his 2022 memoir, he recalled the phonecall in Paris, where she called out of the blue.
He said the only thing he could think of to say was to ask, "Have you still got the tattoo?" Meanwhile, Pete fathered a son, Astile, 20, with Liam Gallagher's ex Lisa Moorish in 2003 and a daughter with South African model Lindi Hingston in 2011.
In his memoir in 2022, Pete reflected: "We [Kate] were attracted to each other. I really loved her, and I knew she loved me – there was just all this messiness in between us, with all her chaos and my chaos. Sometimes we just needed to see each other. Basically, she’d click her fingers and I’d come running."
Tragic deaths
Musician Alan Wass, a close friend of rock star Pete Doherty, who died from an 'unlawful' heroin overdose (PA)
Pete has spent years in and out of rehabIn 2015, Pete's friend and former Libertines bandmate Alan Wass, 33, died from a heart attack after being 'unlawfully' given an injection of heroin, an inquest at Westminster coroner’s court ruled. Five years earlier, Goldsmith heiress Robyn Whitehead, 27, died at a Hackney flat where she had been making a documentary with Pete and his friend, fellow musician, Pete Wolfe, in January 2010.
The inquest at Poplar Coroner’s Court in September 2011 found she had died from heroin poisoning and recorded a verdict of misadventure. As a result of the investigation, Pete was sentenced to six months in jail for possession of cocaine. In 2006 Mark Blanco fell from the balcony of a flat in Whitechapel, east London after rowing with people inside. Pete was caught leaving the scene on CCTV as Blanco lay dying on the pavement.
Pete denied any involvement in his death and said he ran away because he was in possession of drugs. He told NME: "I can understand it does look dodgy. How ashamed do you think I am that I stepped over the body and legged it down the street?'
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"[The film footage] made me feel sick, sick to the stomach. Completely ashamed. I'm stepping over a dying man... I was on bail at the time. I had pockets full of drugs." The coroner ruled out suicide and ordered the Metropolitan police to reopen the investigation, but in 2011 the CPS ruled that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone in relation to his death.
Asked about the tragedies he has been associated with, Pete told The Guardian in 2019: "I wasn’t even in the f**king country when Alan died. I saw Robyn [Whitehead] the night before. Mark Blanco ... well, f**k knows what happened to him.”
Amy Winehouse
Before her tragic death from alcohol poisoning in July 2011, Amy had been good friends with Pete. But in 2012 he claimed they'd actually been lovers but said it ended badly.
“This is difficult for me to admit. But, yes, it’s true. Amy and I were lovers," he told the Mail on Sunday. "I loved her then and, well, I still do today. But towards the end, as only lovers can, she became quite mean and cruel to me. She didn’t suffer fools... and believe me, she had a mean right hook.”
Drugs and rehab
In his early days in London, Pete has told how he funded his addiction by working as a gay prostitute. In Libertine's biography, Kids in Riot, he said: "I was working in a bar, selling drugs, working on a building site, writing poetry in the graveyard shift at The King's Head - and I was w**king off old queens for like GBP20."
Adding to the shocking tale, he told how he stole from one rich punter at his posh mews house in Chelsea. He continued: "Right old f**king badger he was. It was a bit daft actually. As he slept, I locked him in his room, tied a pair of trousers over his head and nicked all these American dollar bills out of his drawer."
He's attempted rehab numerous times over the years, and EastEnders' star June Brown, who played Dot Cotton and died last year, even once reportedly stepped in and offered him a lifeline. June ran a charity that helped pay for addicts to get treatment at a Thai monastery called Thamkrabok, which claims to have one of the highest success rates in the world.
"Anyone can go," she said at the time. "We will pay your fare, all you need is to commit to treatment. I'm a huge Libertines fan. It'd be a marvellous place for Pete to kick his addiction."
Pete "still get tingles" thinking about taking drugs (Getty Images)Pete signed up but sadly only lasted a few days before he fled for the bright lights on Bangkok. After a second stint in Thailand in 2014 he declared that he'd beaten his demons once and for all, but later relapsed within '10 minutes' of getting home to Margate, Kent.
During a major interview, given to the Guardian in 2019, he admitted he was still as addicted as ever but lamented what he could be and achieve if he wasn't controlled by his hunger for drugs. “My heart wants to know what the f**k is going on. Why am I wasting my time and money and friendship and love and energy and creativity on some grotty dessert?” he said.
"A part of me would [like to be clean]. Just so I can feel things. There are so many people in my life who deserve better. It really is a mental deficiency.I’d be a force to be reckoned with! I’d have money and self-respect and clean hands.”
In a 2023 documentary for BBC Two with Louis Theroux, Pete revealed he takes blockers that would prevent heroin from taking effect, and "still get tingles" thinking about taking drugs, but is able to talk about it "rather than running off and scoring". The singer has now been mostly clean since late 2019, and credits musician Frederic Lo for lifting him out of the darkness that may have otherwise consumed him again. Pete covered one of his songs, called 'Inutile et hors d'usage' which means 'Useless and all used up', in early 2020 and really resonated with it.
Last year, he told the Mirror: "I got really emotional when he played it to me, it really hit home. I was giving up hard drugs and feeling f***ed really. The best way to describe it for me is like being hit by a bus. It's still a bit of a struggle but the obsession does lift and it's getting easier. But at the time it hadn't quite lifted and it was really tough." Pete admitted that he feels amazed he's even alive, let alone still clean, after more than two years.
Louis Theroux Interviews Pete Doherty is on BBC iPlayer and BBC Two at 9pm tonight
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