Shocking pictures show Libertines star Pete Doherty high on heroin in front of wife as new doc lays his drug taking bare
SINGER Pete Doherty became as famous for his drug abuse as his music – and now a shocking new film lays bare the extent of his addiction.
In the extraordinarily raw documentary, filmed over ten years by his partner Katia de Vidas, the Libertines and Babyshambles frontman is seen smoking crack cocaine and preparing to inject heroin.
But the film has a happy ending that seemed impossible a decade ago — with Pete, 44, finally kicking his habit and living a clean life in rural Normandy, France, with Katia, now his wife, and their five-month-old daughter Billie-May.
Reflecting on his 15 years as an addict, the hell-raising rock star says in the film, Peter Doherty: Stranger In My Own Skin: “Hard drugs entered my life and slowly, slowly, and then very quickly, took control.”
In the Noughties, when he dated supermodel Kate Moss, Pete’s £200-a-day habit tore apart his family and band and even led to multiple stints in prison.
The first time he took heroin was in 2002, when he was 23.
He was on his own, and after working a shift in London bar Filthy MacNasty’s, he hoped the “skanky, cheap, street-quality heroin would become the sacred key to another dimension”.
He says: “I remember smoking this heroin and deliberately lying down, expecting these incredible dreams, floods and dragons.”
It was the beginning of a spiralling habit, but it wasn’t until a few years later, when he and his Libertines bandmates were on a flight to Japan, that he realised he had a problem.
He recalls: “I was on the aeroplane with this new up-and-coming band, with the world at our feet, and I realised that I was a heroin addict.
Violent lows
“I remember coming off the plane and sweating and feeling a bit sick, and I remember (bandmate) Carl Barat sort of looking at me knowingly, and everyone else just thought I was a bit travel sick.”
Pete smuggled heroin into Japan in his guitar case and immediately took it when he got to the hotel.
He recalls: “I remember the change being almost instant — bing!
“I felt on top of the world, felt a million dollars.
“I went down to the lobby, like, ‘Right, what’s going on?’ Everyone was like, ‘Oh Pete, you look really well’.
“And I remember Carl saying to me, ‘Yeah, I was a bit worried, mate, when I saw you at the airport.
“You looked really pale and sick and you looked like death.
“To be honest, I thought you had a heroin habit.
“But look at you now, you look better than you’ve ever looked’.”
As his drug habit escalated, the success of the Libertines — who scored a No2 single, 2004’s Can’t Stand Me Now, and No1 self-titled album — was overshadowed by conflict between Pete and Carl.
In 2004 the band broke up because Carl didn’t want to play with Pete while he was using.
Pete went on to date Kate Moss between 2005 and 2007.
Last year, in his memoir A Likely Lad, he called their relationship a “running battle” characterised by “highs and then crushing, violent lows”.
In the documentary, Pete tells of the struggles he had with anxiety, especially when performing.
He allows the camera to keep recording as he gets ready to take heroin, a black band pulled tight around his arm as the drug melts on a spoon above a flame.
As it does, he tells Katia: “The one thing I’m not scared of is death.
“I’m scared of everything else.”
He describes feeling so “f***ing petrified” and anxious that he is unable to go to the cash point, adding: “I think I’ve done that a lot in my life as well.
“I’ve got myself in situations with people and then just turned instantly — switch, freak out.
“So I’ve never been able to explain to them. They must just think, ‘What the f***’s wrong with him?’”
Pete’s anxiety and dependency on drugs came to a head in 2010, when The Libertines reunited for Reading and Leeds Festival.
It was the first time the band would be performing together in more than six years.
In 2003 Pete had been jailed for six months for burgling co-star Carl’s flat as revenge for being asked to leave the group.
In the run-up to the gig, which was heavily publicised, Pete describes how the “pressure is mounting” and adds: “It’s going to be f***ing emotional, it’s going to be f***ing impossibly wonderful and stressful, probably going to kill me . . .
“I pray I can sit one day and watch this with you and that you don’t watch this bit of footage the day after my funeral or something.
“I want to make it through to the other side, I do.
“I’m not going the right way about it, I know.
“It’s all wrong, what I’m doing.”
As it turned out, the atmosphere at the band’s festival return was electric, with Pete and Carl hugging each other throughout while singing into the mic together in an excellent return to form.
In the film Pete also opens up about his troubled relationship with his dad, also called Peter, a major in the Royal Signals.
With his mum Jacqueline serving in Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps, the family moved around a lot as Pete grew up.
He recalls: “Everything revolved around the discipline of military life.
“You couldn’t do anything.
“I wanted to live in a world where I wasn’t subjected to this barbed wire.
“It was just a case of how quickly I could get out.”
Blocked emotions
When Pete told his dad he planned to be a musician, he was met with scepticism, and recalls: “He always said to me, ‘Whatever you do, be successful at it’.
“He couldn’t understand it when I declared that me and this lad called Carlos, we were going to make a go of a band and write songs, and become a successful songwriting partnership.
He said, ‘You can’t write songs.
“You’ve shown no propensity towards musical accomplishment.
“You can’t sing, you’re not even . . . Son, what did I tell you?’”
Pete and his father did not speak for eight years as his addiction played out in public.
The documentary shows Pete trying many different steps to get clean, including having an opiate blocker implanted in his stomach.
He even auctions his belongings, including a painting smeared with his blood and that of his late pal Amy Winehouse — another victim of addiction — which sells for £35,000 and funds a trip to Thailand for rehab.
But once he has the money he keeps putting off the trip, and is shown making up excuses and saying he will do “one more bag” before he heads off.
He eventually went to Thailand’s Hope Rehab in September 2014 and the film shows video diaries from his time there as he gradually gets healthier.
At the three-month mark he proudly shows a urine test that proves he has no drugs in his body, other than valium.
He also reveals that he and Carl have made up again, and adds: “Getting clean was the easy bit.
“And 15 years of blocked emotions coming out is going to be the tricky bit. And that’s what I’m running away from, because it’s been quite emotional.
“It’s been a couple of days really, everything makes me cry.
“I think I just needed to hear (Carl) say that that’s how it was for him.”
There is even a reconciliation with his dad, who surprises him by appearing on stage in Germany for a rendition of What A Waster, the first Libertines single, on Pete’s birthday in 2017.
Although Peter Sr mimed snorting drugs when Pete sang the lyrics “Where does all the money go?” it was still a milestone moment, as he had never attended one of his son’s gigs before.
Pete says: “We made peace, quite magical.
“I’m just grateful he’s not disowned me any more.
“Funny old world, isn’t it?”
Since getting clean, Pete has continued to make music, including with Katia, in a band called Peter Doherty & The Puta Madres — a Spanish expletive.
He has even reunited once again with the Libertines, who have recently written their fourth album, All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade, which is set to be released next March.
On his ongoing struggles to stay clean, he says: “It was a deep immersion in that life and there’s a great difference between being clean and being able to live happy and free, clean.
“I can be clean but I’m still putting time between that immersion and coming out of the waters.
“It will take a little time to dry.”
- Peter Doherty: Stranger In My Own Skin, is in cinemas now.