Pete Doherty is a British rock musician, composer and poet, best known to the general public not for his creative achievements, but for his scandalous antics and problems with the law. However, if you put aside the yellow press, in Doherty’s biography you can find many interesting stories, and in it you can see an extraordinary and intellectual personality - in the spirit of Byron Childe-Harold.
early years
Peter Daniel Doherty was born March 12, 1979 in the city of Hexham (UK), in the family of naval sailor Peter John and nurse Jacqueline. The musician’s father is Irish by birth, his mother is half French and half Russian Jewess. Peter has two sisters - the eldest Amy Joe and the younger Emily. Little Pete Doherty in the photo below.
The future rocker began playing guitar at 11 years old - he wanted to impress his classmate. The girl did not pay much attention to the young musician, but Pete has not let go of the guitar since then. As a military family, Doherty moved regularly - by the age of 15, Pete had changed about six schools, which did not prevent him from always studying perfectly. At the age of 16, Pete Doherty won the local poetry contest - the prize was a tour of Russia. The young man really liked the country, perhaps it was her first impressions that made Pete regularly come to concerts in both Russian capitals to this day.
Having passed all school final exams “excellently”, 17-year-old Pete Doherty moved to his grandmother’s London apartment for the summer, settling in a grave digger at a nearby cemetery. Parents considered such an occupation abnormal for a young man, but Peter himself, prone to decadent romanticism, enjoyed spending time among the graves, sitting on tombstones and composing poems. At the age of 18, Doherty appeared on the air of MTV, giving a short interview in line for the new album by Oasis. To the question “What do you think of this band?”, Pete answered:
Liam Gallagher is a throat, and his brother Noel is a poet, and for me it is a golden combination.
The interviewer called the young man a diamond.
The libertines
Soon, the budding Pete succumbed to the persuasion of his mother and entered the faculty of English literature at Queen Mary University. But the young man quickly got bored of being a student, and, barely finishing his first year, he left the alma mater forever. Instead, he decided to seriously engage in a rock band called The Libertines, which he and his best friend Karl Barat created in 1997. The band's first album was released in 2002 and received positive reviews from both the public and critics. In particular, Doherty's poetic talent, inspired by the work of Charles Baudelaire, William Blake, and Emily Dickinson, was highly praised.
However, the growing drug addiction that manifested in Pete at the same time as his first musical success forced the rest of the members to kick him out of the group. The second musical album, released in 2004, was at that time the last in the discography of The Libertines - after the departure of Pete, the band broke up. The reunion happened only in 2014, and already in 2015 the third studio album of the group was released.
Babyshambles
After leaving The Libertines, Pete Doherty founded a new group called Babyshambles, which achieved great creative and commercial success. The first album, called Down in Albion, was released in 2005, and the second, Shotter's Nation, in 2007. The singles from these two albums (Fuck Forever from the first, and Delivery from the second) are by far the most recognizable hits of the musician. The official video for the song Delivery can be seen below.
The band's latest album, Sequel to the Prequel, was released in 2013. Critics often call the Babyshambles a group of Pete Doherty, as many fans do not even know the names of other members of the collective.
Solo work
After the release of the second album of the group Babyshambles, Pete decided to take a timeout and work alone. He gave several recitals, regularly arranged lodgings and was seriously engaged in preparing the first solo album. The release of this disc, called Grace / Wastelands, took place in 2009. Pete Doherty’s second solo album was released in 2016, during a surge of his activity after a long lull (the following records are meant, one after another, released with Babyshambles and The Libertines).
Other areas of activity and hobbies
In addition to music and poetry, Pete Doherty is fond of painting and collage art. In 2007, the Albion Book was released, a collection of diaries, photographs, drawings, poems and other manuscripts of the musician. In the same year, the first exhibition of paintings by Doherty. In 2008, the public got the opportunity to visit another exhibition of Pete, which caused a scandal and public outrage - all the paintings exhibited were painted in blood. In 2012, Doherty made his debut as an actor - he played a major role in the film adaptation of Musset’s novel “Confession of the Son of the Century”.
The musician is an ardent admirer of vintage and antiques - for some time he even owned a museum store where he sold old and simply unusual things from his own collection. With the start of his career at Babyshambles, Pete and his clothing adhere to various styles of bygone eras. But the main and integral element of his style is the hat - he literally collects them. Probably, nowadays nowadays it is impossible to see so many people in classic felt hats than in the hall at a musician's concert.
Doherty is a famous catman - settling in a private house, he starts a horde of cats, collecting all the stray animals in the area. At different times, from 5 to 30 cats constantly lived with him, who came and went freely when they wanted. Cats are the heroes of many musician photo shoots, he talks about them in interviews, and at concerts he rejoices when fans give him plush cats.
Pete, like a true Englishman, loves to play football. In the first half of zero, he even had his own team, consisting of his friends, and he gladly chased the ball across the field in between performances.
Scandals and problems with the law
The first major scandal involving the musician was the robbery of Karl Barat’s apartment. In 2003, The Libertines went on tour in Japan without Pete Doherty due to his growing drug problems. In a fit of rage, Pete burst into his friend’s apartment and brought out several things, including a collectible guitar. For this trick, the musician was sentenced to six months in prison, but according to the results of the appeal he was released two months later. In 2007, the public was outraged by a photograph posted on a social network in which Pete Doherty allegedly makes his cat inhale crack from a special tube. The musician said that he was not crazy, and simply took a photo of a cat with a pipe - there was no drug in it.
In 2008, Doherty was again convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for possession of drugs for 14 weeks, but subsequently reduced the term, and the musician was released after a month. A year later, Pete was again arrested for a fight in a public place: Pete allegedly hit and threw a passerby in a critical condition on the street. This court is known for having a packet of heroin in his pocket right during the hearing. One charge was dropped from him, but the musician was immediately sentenced to another custody sentence. This time he was quickly released on bail, having lost the right to leave the city for a period of 12 months.
Another big scandal erupted in 2010, when the musician was arrested as a suspect in the murder of a certain Robin Whitehead - she was going to make a film about Doherty, but she was suddenly found dead after another drug party. During the trial, the suspicion was removed, but Doherty was sentenced to 6 months in prison for drug possession - this time he was in prison for the entire term.
Personal life
The first serious relationship that Pete had was with singer Lisa Murish, who in 2003 gave birth to the musician's son, Estila. Doherty maintains a good relationship with his son, there is an Estil tattoo on his neck.
In 2005, the musician met with the famous model Kate Moss. They began a stormy relationship, carefully monitored by the yellow press. In 2007, Pete Doherty and Kate Moss announced their engagement, but broke up two months after that. The musician was very worried about breaking up with the model, claiming that he first experienced true love. Even after more than ten years, he does not comment on this relationship.
After breaking up with Moss, Doherty met with model Irena Lazuryan for some time, but their relationship ended in early 2008. After that, joint photos of Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse, the famous soul singer, began to appear in the yellow press. They were called a couple, but the musicians themselves claimed that they were just great friends, like a brother and sister. They remained good friends until the death of the singer in 2011. Doherty was very upset by the death of his girlfriend.
In 2011, Pete had a daughter, Aisling, from the South African model Lindy Hingston, with whom he had a short relationship. Currently, Doherty is in a serious relationship with the director and musician Katya de Vidas - in one of the interviews, he stated that he was truly happy with this woman.