Pete Doherty says he hasn’t read his own memoir and was ‘completely shocked’ to discover it was written in the first person

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Pete Doherty has admitted he cannot bring himself to read his own memoir.

The former Libertines frontman’s new book, A Likely Lad, was written by autobiography writer Simon Spence after extensive interviews with Doherty.

A Likely Lad looks back on the highs and lows of Doherty’s tempestuous career. It covers his time in The Libertines, drugs, prison, debauched parties and more.

In a new interview, Doherty has revealed he has not actually read the book.

“It’s too weird reading it because it’s in the first person,” he told The Guardian.

When asked if he had expected the book to be written in the first person, Doherty said: “No! The initial agreement was I would talk to him on the phone and it would be in the third person. But when the book arrived it was all ‘I’, ‘I’, ‘I’. It’s completely shocking.”

He said that he was upset about the book. “Well, yeah, you can imagine,” he said. “My agent’s words to me were: ‘Just think of the money.’ But we’d already spent the money.”

Doherty complained that “they’ve taken all the good bits out, because everybody’s lawyer had to read it”.

He said: “Plus, my wife was a little bit concerned, but I said to her: ‘If you don’t read it and I don’t read it, we can just pretend it doesn’t exist.’ But that’s not how she does things.”

At one point in the interview, journalist Hadley Freeman asked about Doherty’s 2012 payout from the News of the World, after the tabloid admitted hacking his phone. In his book, it reportedly says: “Sometimes I think it wasn’t so bad. I used to get away with quite a lot as well.” When Freeman quoted this line to Doherty, he looked appalled, saying “of course” he doesn’t feel like that and asking her where she read it.

When she explained she read it in his memoir, he said: “God. No, what a ridiculous thing to say. It was incredibly distressing.”

Doherty now lives in Normandy in France and is married to Katia de Vidas, who plays keyboard in his current band, Pete Doherty and the Puta Madres.

Elsewhere in the interview, he discussed how living in France has helped with trying to stay sober.

“It’s not a big drugs area here,” he said. “Then, of course, everything stopped [with the pandemic]. 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.”

A Likely Lad is out on 16 June.

If you or someone you know is suffering from drug addiction, you can seek confidential help and support 24-7 from Frank, by calling 0300 123 6600, texting 82111, sending an email or visiting their website here.

In the US, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration can be reached at 1-800-662-HELP.