From fanzine hero to tabloid joke

Pete Doherty would like to think he's the indie George Best. In a pathetic rewrite of that old joke, where did it all go wrong for Doherty? The answer would be that he's got Top 10 singles, Top 10 albums, is going out with a famous model and is on the front covers of all the papers.

It's a remarkable journey from the indie ghetto to pushing the Beckhams off their G place on the front page of the tabloids. Not even Eminem in his shock, horror prime commanded the same amount of column space. And Pete takes a good picture. Look at the junkie rock star, his once-cherubic features deadened by drug use, or as the caption politely puts it: "looking the worse for wear".

He's even been interviewed on Newsnight - the programme did an "isn't it awful" feature on rock's troubled genius. For the tabloids, he was a shoo-in. He had the sex (Kate Moss), drugs (heroin, rock cocaine) and rock 'n' roll (whatever his band is called). This shifting of attention has left the indie mags indignant as they cry "but the people writing about him now have never even heard a Libertines or Babyshambles record". As if that matters.

Little wonder that Doherty's "manager", James Mullord (a rum cove, if ever I met one) says of his charge: "He's a huge, soulful, musical talent, but it is getting to the point where I feel like I'm managing a tabloid pin-up like Jordan". Except that Doherty now has more of a purchase on the tabloids than the pneumatic glamour model.

We should have seen this coming: back when Doherty and Carl Barat were still Libertines, the EastEnders actress June Brown (Dot Cotton) told the press that she was the one to help Doherty through his crack cocaine addiction. "Dot Cotton in bid to save junkie rock star", etc. You sort of knew all this was going to happen when you learned that after being kicked out of The Libertines - for being completely out of it all of the time, not to put too fine a point on it - Doherty hooked up with a new best friend who is known as "Wolfman".

The three people closest to Doherty in the music business (The Clash's Mick Jones, Rough Trade's Geoff Travis and Alan McGee) would have been in a position to warn Doherty about the sort of people he was surrounding himself with. What they've been up against is the fact that Doherty as an indie Tara Palmer-Tompkinson figure is worth a lot more than just another indie kid with a No 1 album.

It's common knowledge that Doherty has been selling exclusives to the tabloids for ready cash. The tabloids get their "I Love Kate So Much I'd Even Give Up Crack Cocaine for Her" (and that's an actual headline) story and everyone's a winner. Moving swiftly along, the "junkie jailbird" appeared on stage last week at London's Garage venue for a warm-up show before The Babyshambles' forthcoming Brixton Academy gig. In compliance with his curfew (he has to be home, under supervision, between the hours of 10pm and 7am), Doherty hopped off the stage at 9.45pm to leg it back to his nearby abode.

The judge who imposed this curfew is to be saluted. Obviously people only get off their bin on drugs between 10pm and 7am. Having them at home, under supervision, between these hours will of course solve the problem. Incidentally, the gig at The Garage, we are reliably informed, was stuffed full of Nathan Barley types, keen to have a "Sid Vicious/Kurt Cobain" moment.

Somewhere out there a book is now open to see if Pete Doherty can become the first ever Rough Trade artist to appear on the cover of OK! magazine. From Sniffin' Glue type fanzines to "At Home With . . . ", it's quite a journey.

Looking at the media coverage afforded Doherty over the last few weeks, you can only wonder: Who's got the worse addiction problem?