Pete Doherty admits he hasn’t watched documentary probing death of Cambridge graduate at his ‘minder’s’ party – as he gives rare insight into new life eating cheese, taking ice baths and walking his dogs in the French countryside
- Libertines frontman lives in France with wife Katia and baby daughter Billie-May
- 44-year-old says he ‘feels a different person’ after beating his drug addiction
He was once the bad boy of British rock music who became notorious for his party lifestyle, police run-ins, heroin use and dating Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse.
But while Pete Doherty is still performing with The Libertines now, he said he ‘feels a different person’ after beating his drug addiction as settles down to a new life in France, puts his hellraising days behind him and tries to reinvent himself as ‘Peter’.
The 44-year-old musician has now been clean from drugs for three years and lives in the seaside town of Étretat with his wife, singer and filmmaker Katia de Vidas, whom he married in 2021. They have a three-month-old daughter, Billie-May, and two dogs.
His controversial lifestyle has been back in the headlines in recent days following a new Channel 4 documentary Pete Doherty, Who Killed My Son? that aired last week.
It examined how he was at a drug-fuelled party in London in 2006 when Cambridge graduate Mark Blanco, 30, was allegedly thrown off a first-floor balcony to his death.
In a new interview with ES Magazine, Doherty was reported to have not watched the documentary. He said he has ‘no new information’ to add to the case – but did speak of his compassion for Mr Blanco’s mother Sheila, who criticised him in the show.
Pete Doherty spoke to ES Magazine for an interview from his new home in Étretat, France
Pete Doherty told ES Magazine that he is eating too much cheese and milk in France
Pete Doherty said that he ‘feels a different person’ after beating his drug addiction
Pete Doherty lives in France with his wife, baby daughter and the family’s two dogs
He told ES Magazine : ‘There is no new information to have. The further away we get from that moment, whatever happened to Mark, the less likely we are to find out.
READ MORE Moment Pete Doherty runs away from London flat where Cambridge graduate was ‘thrown off a first-floor balcony’
‘You have to just think, she [Sheila Blanco] has lost her son. Her feelings are valid so if her taking it out on me makes her feel better, let her do it.’
However De Vidas – who has been with Doherty for 12 years – was left angered by the documentary’s title and is now seeking legal advice over defamation.
She told the magazine: ‘The lawyer said to me, ‘There is a question mark [in the title]’. With a question mark, it’s not an accusation. Come on! Peter doesn’t know more! End of the story.’
Neither Doherty nor De Vidas had watched the documentary at the time of the interview, which was published today.
The TV programme, which aired on October 25, featured footage of Doherty running down the road in Whitechapel after Mr Blanco fell from the property.
CCTV footage showed Doherty – with then-girlfriend Kate Russell-Pavier and his ‘minder’ Jonathan Jeannevol, known locally as ‘Johnny Headlock’ – walking past the body and then running away from the scene.
During the documentary, the CCTV video was watched by Ms Blanco, who said: ‘This is one piece of crucial evidence. I choose not to watch it too often, because this is the last time Mark was alive.
Pete Doherty has put his hellraising days behind him as he tries to reinvent himself as ‘Peter’
The 44-year-old musician lives at his home with a three-month-old daughter and two dogs
Mark Blanco is pictured with his mother Sheila on his Cambridge graduation day in June 1997. Mr Blanco died in 2006, at a drug-fuelled party in London which was attended by Doherty
‘It shows Mark being projectiled out over the railing and then straight down to the bricks and pavement below.
Read the full interview with Pete Doherty in this week’s ES Magazine, out today
‘A couple of minutes later we see Pete Doherty come down, stepping over Mark without stopping. And then he seems to pick up something from the ground and run away, followed by Headlock. It is absolutely callous, reprehensible lack of humanity.’
Ms Blanco, who lives in Guildford, Surrey, also accused the Metropolitan Police of bungling the investigation into her son’s death.
The Met later responded by saying they ‘conducted an investigation of all the evidence available following his death’, but the probe ‘remains ongoing and any new evidence or information will be assessed by detectives’.
A short statement by Doherty was released at the end of the documentary, which read: ‘I am sorry for Mrs Blanco’s loss and I welcome any assistance people can give her to come to terms with what happened.’
It came after Doherty was photographed last month on September 13 with his daughter Billie-May and wife De Vidas at a pub in London’s Belgravia.
Pete Doherty is pictured with his wife Katia de Vidas who posed while breastfeeding their daughter Billie-May at an exhibition in Dusseldorf on August 17
Pete Doherty was seen at the Duke of Wellington pub in London’s Belgravia on September 13
Libertines rock star Pete Doherty is pictured on stage while performing in Paris in 2017
Doherty was Kate Moss’s on-off boyfriend in the 2000s. They are seen at Glastonbury in 2007
Meanwhile, Doherty also spoke to ES Magazine about how his life had changed since he was performing with The Libertines and Babyshambles.
READ MORE From party death ‘murder’ of Cambridge grad, to escaping the spotlight for married life in France: How one time rock and roll hellraiser Pete Doherty, who once dated Kate Moss, turned his back on life of drugs and excess
He said: ‘When I’m back in England doing shows, I’m a very different person to who I was.
‘Before, I’d do the shows — mostly — but it seemed to always centre around finding and then using drugs, and the show was secondary. Everything’s just a lot less stressful now.’
Doherty also said he had been seeing a liver doctor who has urged him to change his diet because he is eating too much cheese and milk.
However, he added: ‘But the cheese is so good, that’s part of the reason I stay here … It’s a cholesterol and diabetes thing now, but there are tablets, it makes a big difference.’
The article also revealed how Doherty moved to France during the pandemic, takes the dogs for a walk in the countryside and and now ‘takes a dip every day – either in the ice bath that sits in the garden of his house or the sea, which is apparently not much different’.
Doherty also addressed the recent scandal surrounding Russell Brand who has faced serious accusations – which he strenuously denies – such as rape and sexual assault from a series of women.
Doherty said he met Brand once on a TV show, and the comedian asked him for advice on becoming clean. He added: ‘I found him quite funny as a stand-up comedian. But he never tried to rape me.’
Doherty and The Libertines have recently finished their fourth record – All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade – which is their second since reuniting in 2014 and will be out later this year.
Meanwhile a new documentary about his former wild lifestyle, called Stranger in My Own Skin, will be out in cinemas on November 9.
Read the full interview with Pete Doherty in this week’s ES Magazine, out today
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