Pete Doherty has revealed he smuggled heroin into Japan in his guitar case while on tour with The Libertines.
The frontman’s drug use has been well-documented and he is now is reflecting on the extent of his addiction in a new documentary, filmed by his partner Katia de Vidas.
Filmed over 10 years, Peter Doherty: Stranger In My Own Skin, explores the star's crippling anxiety and drug dependency which came to a head in 2010, when The Libertines performed at Reading and Leeds Festival.
He reflects in the film at one point: “Hard drugs entered my life and slowly, slowly, and then very quickly, took control.”
Later in the documentary, the rocker revealed he took heroin for the first time in 2002 aged 23, but only realised the extent of his addiction until he found himself sweating and sick after a plane journey to Japan.
After landing, Doherty remembered injecting the heroin he had smuggled into the country and described the hit as an instant “bing”.
He recalled: “I felt on top of the world, felt a million dollars. I went down to the lobby, like, ‘Right, what’s going on?’ Everyone was like, ‘Oh Pete, you look really well’.”
The Babyshambles star’s addiction led to him having multiple run ins with the law and he was in and out of prison.
However, Doherty has since turned his life around and is clean, living in Normandy with his wife Katia and their five-month-old daughter Billie-May.
But it wasn’t an easy journey for the star to get sober and the documentary shows raw scenes of him smoking crack cocaine and preparing to inject heroin.
Speaking about his ongoing struggles to stay clean, he says: “It was a deep immersion in that life and there’s a great difference between being clean and being able to live happy and free, clean.
“I can be clean but I’m still putting time between that immersion and coming out of the waters.”
