"I just jumped on the private jet and there we were." The Libertines' Pete Doherty shares his memories of holidaying in Thailand with members of Britain's royal family

Kate Moss and Pete Doherty — (Image credit: Phillip Massey/FilmMagic)

The Libertines frontman Pete Doherty has shared his memories of a holiday in Thailand with members of the British royal family. It didn't end so well for Doherty, as she recalls.

Doherty, then fronting his post-Libertines band Babyshambles, and his girlfriend at the time, supermodel Kate Moss enjoyed holidaying together in Phuket, and were apparently staying in the exclusive and luxurious Amanpuri resort around Easter 2012 at the same time that Prince Andrew's former wife Sarah Ferguson was on vacation at the resort with the couple's then-teenage daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

“I think it was a couple of times,” Doherty recalls in an interview with The Irish Independent newspaper. “Sarah was there with her daughters, the princesses.

“I can remember Sarah Ferguson dancing in a bar – on the table,” he continues. “That was quite interesting. One for the memories. I think I just went along for the ride. I didn’t even know where we were going. ‘Are you coming then? Hurry up!’ And I just jumped on the private jet and there we were.”

At the time, writers for Britain's tabloid newspapers weren't impressed by the young royals keeping company with Doherty and Moss, not least because some years earlier the Daily Mirror had published a photo of Moss in a recording studio with Doherty above the headline 'Cocaine Kate: supermodel Kate Moss snorts line after line'.

“The 47-year-old Duchess...is holidaying with her two children, who are fifth and sixth-in-line-to-the-throne,” London's Evening Standard reported on April 12, 2012. “Just an hour or so after the royal party departed, supermodel Miss Moss, 32, arrived at the airport with her five-year-old daughter, Lila Grace, and a handful of friends - although there was no sign of her heroin junkie boyfriend, Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty - to catch a later British Airways service.”

A 'friend' of Ferguson told the newspaper that Ferguson was definitely not holidaying with Moss, however.

“She and the Duchess have met at several of his parties before and are on friendly terms but they are certainly not holidaying together,” this source insisted.

Doherty's recollection is that his own adventures in Thailand in 2012 were cut short, for reasons unspecified.

“I remember I got deported that summer from Thailand,” he tells The Irish Independent. “I woke up in Heathrow Airport in a pair of Thai policeman’s shorts.”

We've all been there....

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.