Pete Doherty Photo: Cyril Laffoa
Pete Doherty shockingly claims that his heart stopped last month and that he was left on a life support machine after collapsing.
The musician cancelled a number of shows in Ireland last month claiming “exhaustion and breathing difficulties”.
In an interview with NME the Babyshambles frontman revealed that he was was rushed to Swindon’s Great Western Hospital after suffering unexplained “poisoning” at his Wiltshire home. Doherty who has regular drug related run ins with the law added: “If I hadn’t been on a life support machine I’d have been in Ireland, but my heart stopped.”
Peter claims that no drugs were involved in the incident which made him miss shows in Dublin, Belfast and Galway.
The rocker,who was recently fitted with another implant to keep him off heroin and cocaine, said he became ill at his home in Marlborough, but remembers little.
“It was a really strange turn of events. Obviously, their [the doctors’] immediate thought was that it was to do with drugs, but it wasn’t – it was some kind of poisoning,” Doherty explains.
“What happened? Well, I don’t know, I don’t remember. At the time I thought I was a taxi driver offering to take everyone to Elephant And Castle. I was running into the walls, making steering wheel signs with my hands. And then I just stopped. My body just stopped.”
Doherty continued : “I woke up and the doctors were asking ‘Do you know your name?’. I said ‘Yeah, Peter.’ And they said ‘Do you know where you are?’. I said ‘Well, I’m in a hospital…’. It was like Twenty Questions.”
Doherty said he was subsequently given the all-clear, but the singer – who kicks off his first Babyshambles tour for two years next month – said: “They’re concerned about my heart rate.
“I’ve always had a slight dickie heart, I was born with it. I’m fragile in there, you know?”