Despite calling it quits sixteen years ago, Pete Doherty and Kate Moss's tumultuous relationship is never far from the spotlight.
The pair dated between 2005 and 2007, when Pete was at the height of his fame as the frontman for rock band The Libertines. At the time, many saw their relationship is the epitomy of the worrying 'heroin chic' aesthetic of the early noughties.
There has been lots of speculation in the tabloid press around the reason for their split, and now Pete has added fuel to the fire in a recent interview. On last night’s episode of Louis Theroux Interviews, Pete gave Louis a tour of his ‘Atelier’ – a room housing memorabilia from his career – and revealed one of the things that put him off Kate Moss (clue - it’s probably not what you think.)
Pete explained how he had recently seen Kate in a Coca Cola advert, before admitting how it was a reminder of why his feelings towards her changed. ‘I saw her in a Coca Cola ad the other day,' he said, mimicking the model's south London accent. 'Coca Cola. That's what she'd say in the morning, to her assistant, and then I learnt Donald Trump does the same thing and it put me off a bit.'
'What, drinking Coke?' asked Louis.
'Well, ordering it from her assistant all the time,' he replied.
Kate has been the face of Diet Coke for two years, returning in 2023 with a new campaign called ‘Diet Coke by Kate Moss, Love What You Love.’ When asked at the launch how she felt about her new role, Kate reportedly alluded to her wild party days in her response, commenting ‘Well, I have always loved coke.’
In the interview, Pete also revealed how he still had one of Kate’s personalised suitcases, embossed with the words 'Kate Moss – Do Not Touch.' On noticing the personalised branding, Louis said ‘That caught my eye.’ Pete replied, ‘Oh my God, and mine,’ continuing ‘It’s an old suitcase that had loads of stuff in it. I hadn't opened it for ages and bang! When I opened it, do not touch. It is quite a strange thing to have on your suitcase.'
Inside the case, Pete finds an old photo of himself posing alongside a collage of Kate at the National Portrait Gallery. 'You're starting to make me look like I've got this locker full of Kate Moss memories or something,' he joked. 'That's complete chance.'
This isn’t the first time Pete has reflected on his relationship with Kate. In his memoir A Likely Lad, Pete wrote that there was 'not really one specific incident that caused them to split,' stating 'our worlds were not really compatible in the end.' But he also added ‘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.’ At the time of their relationship, Pete was battling with an ongoing heroin and coke addiction, which had forced him to leave The Libertines in 2004.
Pete's life now is worlds away from those days. He has been in a stable relationship with the filmmaker Katia de Vidas since 2012 and the couple married in a secret ceremony in September 2021. Earlier this year, he announced the birth of their child, Billie-May, in a Twitter post. In 2021, he told The Sun he's doing more sleeping, eating French cheese, and drinking water since moving to Normandy in France. 'For years and years, I would stay up for five or six days and then I would sleep for 24 hours, so now I love sleep,' he said. 'At the moment I’m quite clean. I stopped taking heroin and ketamine.'
What happened between Kate Moss and Pete Doherty?
At the height of their fame, Pete and Kate were the ultimate Indie couple. Pete, then 25, met Kate at her 31st birthday party, and they initially tried to keep their relationship under wraps from the press. In his memoir, Pete writes how they would meet ‘for the night, or for a couple of hours’ without telling anyone. One week after meeting, they got matching tattoos. They tied the knot in a Buddhist ceremony on a beach in Thailand in 2007. The wedding had no legal standing in the UK but the pair were reportedly planning on making things official later down the line.
However, it quickly became a relationship defined by turbulence. Describing how the relationship came to an end, Pete wrote ‘It became a running battle, really, that relationship,’ continuing ‘It was always the same, for all those years: highs and then crushing, violent lows. It was not sustainable.’
He describes a series of incidents, including accidentally setting off a panic alarm in Kate’s bedroom, which prompted 12 armed police officers to turn up at the door. He also described how Kate ‘desecrated’ one of his guitars, adding ‘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.’ Kate and Pete broke up in July 2007 following his failed stint at rehab in Arizona.
Despite their ups and downs, Pete admits that he loved Kate, writing 'We were attracted to each other. I really loved her and I knew she loved me – there was just all this messiness in between us, with all her chaos and my chaos.’
Kate has remained mostly silent about her relationship with Pete. However, in a 2012 interview she told The Mirror ‘I wish I’d never met him. He’s a user in every sense of the word.’