Pete Doherty has undergone a dramatic physical transformation in recent years. The Libertines frontman is back on our TV screens tonight as he's interviewed by Louis Theroux on BBC Two at 9pm, but might be unrecognisable to some viewers.
Pete's appearance is a far cry from the gaunt frame he had during years of drug abuse in the early 2000s. He now lives in Normandy, France, with his wife and Puta Madres bandmate Katia de Vidas.
Pete, 44, previously revealed how the relocation had helped him to quit hard drugs and take up a slower pace of life playing petanque. But it also led to a big change in his diet.
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In 2021, Doherty revealed that he was "quite clean". No longer taking heroin or ketamine, the singer revealed he was instead indulging in cheese.
He told the Guardian in 2022 that French cheese was too good to pass up. “It’s a bit embarrassing, isn’t it?” he told the interviewer, patting his tummy. “But, yeah, the cheese, man. The cheese in this area – the brie, the camembert.
"There’s something special in the grass, you can taste it in the milk, it’s different here, it’s so creamy. I drink it by the pint. And the butter, and the bread, and the saucisson...”
The story of Pete's return to sobriety began with him being arrested in Paris twice in 48 hours – first for buying crack and then for beating up a motorcyclist. He was put on probation on the condition he go on Buvidal, an injection to block the effect of heroin.
Also as part of his probation, he needed a permanent address. He’d hoped to go back to the Albion Rooms, the Libertines’ somewhat improbable hotel in Margate, Kent, but had been banned for 'bringing various characters there'. So instead he went to De Vidas’s family home in Normandy, which is where they are still living. Then the pandemic hit.
“It’s not a big drugs area here. Then, of course, everything stopped. So all the circumstances combined to make it easier to be clean, even for a conniving scoundrel like myself. It just wasn’t worth the aggravation,” he said.
