Pete Doherty was always top of the class.
Born in Hexham, Northumberland, his dad John was a major in the Royal Signals and his mum Jacqueline Michels a lance corporal in the Royal Nursing Corps.
An exemplary student, despite moving around the country as a military child, he achieved 7 A*s in his GCSEs, two As at A-Level and went on a poetry tour of Russia with the British Council when he was 16 after winning a competition.
After college, he moved to London to study English Literature at the University of London but quit a year in; got a flat with muso Carl Barat and co-founded The Libertines in 1997.
By 2002, their album Up the Bracket had turned the band into mainstream indie stars, but less than two years later, Pete - who turns 42 today - got kicked out of the band for abandoning rehab amid a spiralling drug addiction.
Years of turbulence followed, from an explosive relationship with Kate Moss to a string of arrests and failed rehab stays and the tragic drugs deaths of some of those closest to him.
Here's what became of Pete after his initial foray into fame...
Kate Moss
The unlikely couple met in January 2005 at Kate's 31st birthday party and had planned to marry in the summer 2007.
Pete famously drew a picture of them using his own blood, which sold for £5,000 last year.
But their split was an acrimonious one, with the star accusing his ex of burning his beloved teddy Pandy - claims she has never responded too.
Then in 2012, when Kate was married to The Kills star Jamie Hince, Pete claimed she called him out of the blue to make peace and check on his welfare.
“I got a call which came as a surprise as we haven’t exchanged a word since it ended. And believe me, it ended nastily," he told the Daily Mail.
“But she was friendly and just asked me what I was up to. She wanted to know why I hadn’t written any songs recently and whether I was still taking drugs.
“She told me that despite everything that had happened between us, she was still rooting for me and that was nice. It means a lot to me to know that.”
Meanwhile, he fathered a son, Astile, 17, with Liam Gallagher's ex Lisa Moorish in 2003 and a daughter with South African model Lindi Hingston in 2011.
Tragic deaths
In 2015, Pete's friend and former Libertines bandmate Alan Wass, 33, died from a heart attack after being 'unlawfully' given an injection of heroin, an inquest at Westminster coroner’s court ruled.
Five years earlier, Goldsmith heiress Robyn Whitehead, 27, died at a Hackney flat where she had been making a documentary with Pete and his friend, fellow musician, Pete Wolfe, in January 2010.
The inquest at Poplar Coroner’s Court in September 2011 found she had died from heroin poisoning and recorded a verdict of misadventure. As a result of the investigation, Pete was sentenced to six months in jail for possession of cocaine.
In 2006 Mark Blanco fell from the balcony of a flat in Whitechapel, east London after rowing with people inside. Pete was caught leaving the scene on CCTV as Blanco lay dying on the pavement.
Pete denied any involvement in his death and said he ran away because he was in possession of drugs.
He told NME: "I can understand it does look dodgy. How ashamed do you think I am that I stepped over the body and legged it down the street?'
"[The film footage] made me feel sick, sick to the stomach. Completely ashamed. I'm stepping over a dying man... I was on bail at the time. I had pockets full of drugs."
The coroner ruled out suicide and oprdered the Metropolitan police to reopen the investigation, but in 2011 the CPS rules that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone in relation to his death.
Asked about the tragedies he has been associated with, Pete told The Guardian in 2019: "I wasn’t even in the f**king country when Alan died. I saw Robyn [Whitehead] the night before. Mark Blanco ... well, f**k knows what happened to him.”
Amy Winehouse
Before her death from alcohol poisoning in July 2011, tragic Amy had been good friends with Pete.
But in 2012 he claimed they'd actually been lovers but said it ended badly.
“This is difficult for me to admit. But, yes, it’s true. Amy and I were lovers," he told the Mail on Sunday.
"I loved her then and, well, I still do today. But towards the end, as only lovers can, she became quite mean and cruel to me. She didn’t suffer fools... and believe me, she had a mean right hook.”
Drugs and rehab
In his early days in London, Pete has told how he funded his addiction by working as a gay prostitute.
In Libertine's biography, Kids in Riot, he said: "I was working in a bar, selling drugs, working on a building site, writing poetry in the graveyard shift at The King's Head - and I was w**king off old queens for like GBP20."
Adding to the shocking tale, he told how he stole from one rich punter at his posh mews house in Chelsea.
He continued: "Right old f**king badger he was. It was a bit daft actually. As he slept, I locked him in his room, tied a pair of trousers over his head and nicked all these American dollar bills out of his drawer."
He's attempted rehab numerous times over the years, and EastEnders' star June Brown, who played Dot Cotton, even once stepped in and offered him a lifeline.
June, 94, ran a charity that helped pay for addicts to get treatment at a Thai monastery called Thamkrabok, which claims to have one of the highest success rates in the world.
"Anyone can go," she said at the time. "We will pay your fare, all you need is to commit to treatment. I'm a huge Libertines fan. It'd be a marvellous place for Pete to kick his addiction."
Pete signed up but sadly only lasted a few days before he fled for the bright lights on Bangkok.
After a second stint in Thailand in 2014 he declared that he'd beaten his demons once and for all, but later relapsed within '10 minutes' of getting home to Margate, Kent.
During his last major interview, given to the Guardian in 2019, he admitted he was still as addicted as ever but lamented what he could be and achieve if he wasn't controlled by his hunger for drugs.
“My heart wants to know what the f**k is going on. Why am I wasting my time and money and friendship and love and energy and creativity on some grotty dessert?” he said.
"A part of me would [like to be clean]. Just so I can feel things. There are so many people in my life who deserve better. It really is a mental deficiency.I’d be a force to be reckoned with! I’d have money and self-respect and clean hands.”
Where he is now
When The Libertines chipped in and bought a hotel to renovate in Margate, they agreed to give Pete a share in return for playing a series of gigs.
Carl allowed him to live at the Victorian seafront property, which they named the Albion Rooms, while it was being done up - a kind move Pete says 'saved him'.
He said: "It was a dream having a place where I didn’t have to worry about rent for the first time. Just having a roof over my head, not having a gun to my head with the threat of eviction or: ‘You have to sh*g me or you’re out on your ear.’
“I don’t want to be shared or passed around like a f**king tin can used as an ashtray at a party."
Meanwhile, after years of estrangement from his frustrated father, the pair finally reconnected with Pete explaining how his dad had researched his addictions online and learned the lingo.
“He’s an incredible man. He’s gone from not talking to me because of drugs to going online and looking up drug slang," he explained.
"He said to me: ‘Have you got your Christmas stash or are you bugging out?’ I was like: 'What the f**k?!' It was a way of putting his hand out to me, reconciliation.”
Pete is still thought to be in a relationship with singer Katia de Vidas and lives in Margate where he performs with Pete Doherty and the Puta Madres and was hospitalised in 2019 after pricking his finger on a hedgehog spike.
