Pete Doherty and Kate Moss’s romance was a real moment in time (Picture: Getty)
When it comes to rock n roll romances, few are as wild and hedonistic as Kate Moss and Pete Doherty were in the 2000s.
Where David and Victoria Beckham epitomised polished glamour, Kate, now 49, and Pete, 44, were the complete opposite; unravelled and unapologetically rough around the edges. They were a couple who were on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum to one another, with Kate a supermodel darling and Pete a member of the rock bands The Libertines and Babyshambles.
But of course, opposites attract and these two stars were drawn to each other at the peak of their fame.
Pete sat down with Louis Theroux to reflect on his colourful life in the latest episode of Louis Theroux Interviews, and his high-profile relationship with Kate is, understandably, a hot topic for the filmmaker.
It was January 2005 and Pete, then 25, attended Kate’s 31st birthday party in the Cotswolds where he’d rub shoulders with other A-list guests, but it was the Croydon-born fashion muse who commanded all his attention.
From the moment they met at her star-studded birthday bash, Kate and Pete’s whirlwind love affair began and almost immediately, reports of their unexpected coupling hit the press.
They were one of the most talked about couples, with every tabloid wanting a piece of them (Picture: Paul Underhill/FilmMagic)
At this point, Kate was a mother to two-year-old daughter Lily Grace, now 21, who she shares with former partner Jefferson Hack, while Pete was also a father-of-one, sharing son Astile, now aged 20, with his former partner Lisa Moorish.
It may seem like Kate and Pete came from two different worlds but their love of hard partying was undeniably a common interest.
Pete’s drug addiction was no secret in the early noughties and his heroin use was widely reported; he recently explained how he even smuggled ‘hard drugs’ into Japan while fully consumed with his addiction.
Perhaps it was their hard partying that fuelled the true fiery nature of their relationship, which would rear its head in July 2005 when the lovebirds were caught having a ferocious row on a Eurostar train. It was said at the time that Pete was accusing the model of having an affair with the father of her child.
But the biggest scandal of Kate’s career erupted in September of that year – it was a true pop culture bombshell moment and you just had to be there to truly feel the magnitude of how scandalous it was for its time.
It was well known that Kate was a party animal but most were shocked when photos emerged of the runway queen using cocaine while hanging out with Pete and the Babyshambles at their recording studio. The footage made it pretty evident what was going on and Kate’s career, let alone her reputation, was immediately damaged.
Kate and Pete were believed to be twin flames – but their romance burned out fast (Picture: Phillip Massey/FilmMagic)
She lost many of her lucrative modelling contracts during this time and big-name brands such as H&M and Burberry were forced to walk away from their tarnished ambassador.
Reflecting on the controversy in 2002, Kate said on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs in 2022: ‘I felt sick and was quite angry because everybody I knew took drugs. So for them to focus on me, and to try to take my daughter away, I thought was really hypocritical.’
Things went from bad to worse as Kate and Pete broke up weeks later following his failed stint at rehab in Arizona. They had reunited by March 2006 and Pete declared his love for the model by scrawling ‘I love Kate 4 eva’ on the windscreen of his Jaguar when leaving a court hearing for a drug-related offence.
It seemed they were determined to set themselves on the right track when they entered rehab together, with Pete quipping that he ‘wasn’t much of a junkie anyway.’
Kate seemed to have been welcomed by her boyfriend’s family, with Pete’s uncle suggesting she was pregnant and sharing his excitement for any wedding plans.
The couple at least did seem to be serious about each other as he had moved into the model’s home in February 2007.
A series of major rows contributed to the demise of their affair (Picture: Jennifer Gonzales/REX/Shutterstock)
Pete insisted that he and Kate’s parents got on like a house on fire, and vice versa. In fact, his dad had no idea she was a supermodel, making for comical conversation when he asked what she did for a living.
Alas, what goes up must come down and the high-profile romance didn’t exactly have a happy ending, according to Pete himself.
He and Kate had one final big old kick-off, he wrote in his memoir.
‘Kate desecrated this 1930s Gibson I had, smashed it up. Then she covered this teddy bear of mine, called Pandy, in petrol and set him alight – it’s not funny. I used to carry him ’round London with me,’ he shared.
‘Deep down in my heart, I like to think it’s just a lie and Kate didn’t really destroy him, that she’s still got him, but no, as far as I know, he’s dead, ashes.’
Pete said he ‘held on’ to that for a long time – and it wasn’t the only major row they had that contributed to their affair’s demise.
He once accidentally set off a panic alarm in Kate’s bedroom at her home in St John’s Wood, North-West London, causing 12 armed police officers to turn up at the door.
Kate didn’t go to crack dens. She never had an interest in all that, and, if I’m honest, that’s why we broke up
Pete later confessed that he ended up pressing the button while searching down the side of Kate’s bed for some crack cocaine he had lost.
Unsurprisingly, Kate wasn’t best pleased and it didn’t take long for things to go up in flames.
As of October 2022, the last time Pete had spoken to Kate was ‘eight or nine years ago’ in Paris.
‘She called me up out of the blue. I just said, “Have you still got the tattoo?” That was the only thing I could think of to say.’
Indeed, in the early days of their wild relationship, while Kate was 31 and Pete was 25, the love-struck ravers would enjoy clandestine meetings in dimly-lit backrooms of London restaurants, with Pete daring her to get an inking in his honour.
Pete wrote in A Likely Lad that, just a week into dating, they got matching tats.
‘I think I insisted on that,’ he said. ‘I wanted her to prove her love, so I said, “You’ve got to get a tattoo with my initials on, you’ve got to get branded.” It was more of an insecurity thing on my part.’
Pete lays it all out in Louis Theroux Interviews (Picture: BBC/Mindhouse Productions/Ryan McNamara)
Whether Kate still has the ink, well, we’re not sure, but one thing we do know is that the rocky romance is no more as of July 2007, splitting just months after getting engaged.
After a tumultuous fling as one of the most talked about celeb couples, Kate and Pete called it quits, as he admitted: ‘Kate didn’t go to crack dens. She never had an interest in all that, and, if I’m honest, that’s why we broke up.’
Watch Louis Theroux Interviews – Pete Doherty tonight at 9pm on BBC2 and BBC iPlayer.
You simply had to be there.
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