Rock star goes downhill after being 'dumped'

By Pete Paphides and Joanna Bale

PETE DOHERTY, the drug-addicted rock star said to have been dumped by Kate Moss in an attempt to clean up her image, is in a rapid decline as he drowns his sorrows, according to friends. Plumbing new depths in rock and roll excess, he disgusted many fans when he vomited on stage in Greenock, near Glasgow, on Wednesday night after swigging vodka as he performed his second sell-out gig of a British tour. The 26-year-old Babyshambles frontman also spat and swore, hurled a microphone stand and threw orange juice over photographers.

Friends say that they barely recognise the talented musician and songwriter whose behaviour has become increasingly bizarre in recent weeks due to his on-off romance with the model.

On Thursday night, after a gig in Aberdeen, he began swearing and spraying beer at photographers while stripped to the waist and tried to push his way through fans to attack them.

Last Saturday he caused havoc on an easyJet flight back from a trip to Ibiza by abusing fellow passengers and even trying to light a cigarette. Friends eventually succeeded in calming him down. During the trip, he allegedly smashed up a villa, causing £50,000 damage, and went on 24-hour binges.

Friends say that his break-up with Moss may be the last straw for him as he struggles to live up to his glory days as the Libertines frontman.

If Babyshambles’ recent single Fuck Forever is anything to go by, Doherty might have made his decision a long time ago. Equating death with glory, the song firmly pins its creator’s colours to the mast of Rimbaudian excess at a time when his only remaining friends seem happy to join him for this final chaotic ride. Even the NME which, last year, deemed him the “coolest man in rock” ha s muted its coverage of Doherty. Babyshambles’ debut album was originally pencilled in for a summer release.

With the sessions having failed to yield enough releasable material, questions over Doherty’s ability to produce songs that live up to his reputation have merely magnified.

Fitzroy Simpson, 23, who has known Doherty since the early days of the Libertines said: “The thing about Babyshambles is that they’re not very good. His voice is beginning to go, and that last single [Fuck Forever] was a bit embarrassing.”

In any other profession, Doherty would have long since worn out the patience of even the most forbearing employer. But in rock’n’roll, where the ability to talk a good song can sometimes obscure the ability to perform, it’s not quite so straightforward.

Doherty’s transformation from indie-poet to walking car crash has been under way for a while now. On Babyshambles’ website, fans argue the moral whys and wherefores of that now familiar concert chant, “We love Pete! We love Pete”.

The subtext is clear. The more wasted he gets, the more a section of his fanbase loves it.

Should we sympathise with the singer at the centre of it all? Inasmuch as Doherty seems to have fallen prey to his own naivety, perhaps we should. Turning up for his disastrous Live 8 appearance in July, he looked like a man besotted by his own myth, posing and pouting in front of the same tabloid photographers that he has recently taken to attacking. He continues to drink (and, occasionally, perform) at the Boogaloo Bar in Highgate, North London, even though paparazzi perpetually lie in wait.

To fans, the gradual evaporation of the Doherty they remember is too sad to be a part of. One follower tells a story about a friend whose sister was a mentally and physically handicapped Libertines fan. Unannounced, the singer turned up at her house and played an impromptu show. “What people liked about him was the fact that he wouldn’t do things like the average rock star.”