> FURY AS DOHERTY TRUTH REVEALED

>
> The Samaritans have today recruited 600 extra staff to deal with an
> expected surge in calls as troubled fans come to terms with today's
> revelations about rocker and teen icon Pete Doherty. In a surprise
> press conference today, the men behind Doherty's career reveled
> themselves - and admitted that the Libertines, Babyshambles, the tales
> of drug use, the armed robberies and the affair with supermodel Kate
> Moss have all been part of one of the largest hoaxes in British
> history.
>
> The men behind the scandal - Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, who were
> themselves infamous popstars under the name The KLF - admitted how
> they plucked a young Buddy Holly impersonator Doherty from obscurity
> and made him a media darling. "It was a meant to be a quick stunt to
> show the frailties of our celbrity-obsessed culture," said Cauty,
> adding, "there are too many people who are famous despite their lack
> of talent, usefulness and basic intelligence. We wanted to do
> something that held a mirror up to that." Mr Drummond called Britain's
> pop-culture "sick" and said that although he regretted the hurt caused
> to Doherty's many fans, he hoped "this incident taught us all some
> important things".
>
> In a prepared statement, the two men - famous for many other pop
> pranks, including the famous burning of GBP1million on a remote
> Scottish island - detailed how they manipulated the British Press into
> making Doherty an icon. Doherty - whose real name has now been
> revealed to be Trevor McDermott - was making a living as a part-time
> Buddy Holly impersonator in the Cornwall holiday circuit. He began a
> short-lived affair with the singer of a well known 80's rock band, and
> was introduced to Drummond and Cauty at a backstage party in London's
> West End. The men described how a drunken McDermott amused them with
> his slurred singing and frenetic dance movements, and how they then
> realised that this would be the perfect "dupe" for a plan they had
> been hatching for some time.
>
> "The plan involved proving three theories we have about current
> British society," reads the statement. "The first is that in the
> so-called "alternative" scene, everybody is too scared of missing The
> Next Big Thing to worry about anything else." To prove this, some
> session musicians were provided to compose the rest of the "band", The
> Libertines, and rumours of exposive gigs were leaked to the media.
> "The gigs in question never actually took place, but we didn't have to
> worry about that. Soon the buzz around The Libertines was so frenetic,
> journalists were falling over themselves to claim to have been at the
> front of every single fictional gig." Within weeks, The Libertines
> were appearing on magazines and receiving record offers. Gigs sold out
> in minutes, while their first album "Up The Bracket" flew off shelves.
>
> Feeling that their first point had been proved, Drummond and Cauty
> moved to their second theory: "We feel that our culture has become an
> enormous soap opera. We don't care what a person thinks, or creates,
> or contributes. We just care about what they do in their normal lives.
> Especially when it's something they shouldn't be doing."
>
> To demonstrate this, the men co-ordinated a number of scandals. First
> was a robbery staged in the house of one of the band members. When
> this took place, McDermott (aka Doherty) was unknown outside of the
> alternative music scene. An incident of this calibre was sufficient,
> however, to catapult McDermott onto the front page of every major
> national tabloid. "One day we has just another singer, the next day he
> was 'Disgraced Celebrity Rocker', and he hasn't been out of the papers
> since". Further revelations about drug abuse and violence kept
> McDermott and The Libertines on the front pages for months.
>
> One thing that took even Drummond and Cauty by surprise was the affair
> with model Kate Moss. "That was not something that we planned or had
> any involvement. Whether she knew about the hoax is something we are
> not party to. We have never had any contact with Miss Moss." However,
> this was the boost their project needed - where the drugs and crime
> had made McDermott a media sensation, the relationship with one of
> fashion's most famous women catapulted him into the world of true
> celebrity. "While we had not planned this, it certainly proved our
> point. There are many superior artists in the country today, but they
> never appear in Heat or The Sun, because they don't have the words
> 'boyfriend of Kate Moss' after their name."
>
> Despite this boost, the project began running into a major setback for
> Drummond and Cauty. Just as they were preparing to enter the final
> phase of their scheme, Doherty decided that he wanted to part company
> with them, the fake band, and begin seriously recording music. He
> stopped all contact with the men, and threatened legal actions if any
> details were leaked to the press. "We were upset at the apparent
> failure of our grand project, and also at the monster we had created
> in Pete Doherty. Our third theorem - that 'If enough people say that a
> piece of s*** is a bar of gold, we'll believe it's a bar of gold' -
> seemed to have been beyond salvation. Fortunately, at that point Pete
> released the first Babyshambles album."
>
> In the time since then, Drummond and Cauty have been locked in a
> vicious legal battle, which was eventually settled out of court by the
> discovery of a videotape showing McDermott singing "Peggy Sue" at a
> Butlin's in Devon. Publicly, McDermott still strongly denies all
> charges. How this affects the future career of Pete Doherty remains to
> be seen.