Doherty In A Real Babyshambles

Pete Doherty made sure McCartney, Madonna and George Michael didn’t hog all the headlines as his short Italian tour threw up stories about him getting married to apparently pregnant girlfriend Kate Moss and ended with him having a brawl after the last show.

His October 23rd gig at Rome’s famous and newly reopened Piper Club, which has hosted shows by Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Nirvana, had Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reporting how the erratic and drug-troubled star had clashed with the audience and then started a fight. The story was soon picked up by the U.K. tabloids.

London’s Evening Standard carried what it claimed to be an eye witness account of Doherty “dripping with blood” after a fracas with an Italian newspaper photographer who was said to require hospital treatment for his injuries.

Doherty’s camp was quick to release a statement denying that he’d instigated the fight and claiming the Italian snapper hit him with a camera.

Earlier in the night, Doherty reportedly brandished a microphone stand at fans in the front row after a missile thrown from the crowd hit the band’s drummer, who was forced to leave the stage.

Doherty was said to have waved the mic stand at spectators in the front row, having spent most of the set drinking red wine and vodka.

The U.K. tabloids say Moss, whose repair job on a modeling career once threatened by reports of her own drug abuse has made her one of the world’s most bankable bad girls, is pregnant and she’ll be marrying Doherty in the new year.

Writing in the U.K.’s The Independent, Peter Popham described Babyshambles‘ Italian tour as a “coup de theatre” and “a publicist’s wet dream” as the allegedly pregnant Moss joined the band on stage in Milan and Florence, an experience that the crowds in Turin and Rimini were – depending on your viewpoint – either spared or denied.

The whole Pete and Kate phenomenon seems lost on the Italians, with women’s weekly Grazia interviewing an academic from Montreal University in search of an explanation as to why someone as rich and gorgeous as she should bother with a Babyshambles like him.

“Music signals, to a potential partner, good physical, sexual and intellectual health. Men who know how to write and perform songs are perceived as ‘creative,’ in other words, better equipped for perpetuating the species,” was the professor’s helpful explanation.

Meanwhile back in the U.K., Doherty’s uncle was telling The Sunday Mirror that Moss is definitely pregnant, and his mother was letting BBC Radio 4 listeners know that “drugs are stronger than love.”

Moss, 32, who returned to England before the Babyshambles show in Rome, was busy informing The Sun that she’s happy to give evidence for McCartney in the bitter divorce case that’s expected to hit court in the spring.

– John Gammon