Pete Doherty once turned down a role in EastEnders

4 July 2022, 15:22 | Updated: 4 July 2022, 15:31

Pete Doherty with the Queen Vic from EastEnders inset. Picture: 1. David Rose/Shutterstock 2. Kate Green/Getty Images

By Jenny Mensah

The Libertines frontman has opened up about some of the roles he was offered before the band reformed.

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Pete Doherty has revealed he was offered a role on Eastenders and regrets turning it down.

The Libertines rocker has recalled how he was given a few opportunities to work in TV when the band had split, but he didn't take them.

According to The Mirror, he said: There are a few things that have fallen through over the years that I was a bit disappointed about – opportunities that came up that I didn’t take.

“I was going to get a part in EastEnders at one point. It was around this time that the Libertines re-formed too.”

That's not the only connection the Libs singer has with the soap, though, revealing he once tried to chat up Patsy Palmer, who famously played Bianca Jackson.

He recounts in his new memoir A Likely Lad: “I remember a Sky One show because I asked out Patsy but her boyfriend was stood right next to her, so it was a bit embarrassing."

According to the outlet, the Don't Look Back Into The Sun rocker - who claims he would rather be an actor than a musician - was also offered 100,000 to appear on Celebrity Big Brother.

While Pete's career in TV never materialised, he's always made clear his desire to be on screen as a young child.

Every year or so a clip resurfaces of a young Doherty queueing for Oasis's Be Here Now album, but back in 2019 Doherty revealed he wasn't actually really a fan of the band at the time and was only queueing outside HMV to buy their album because he wanted to get on TV.

Speaking on Phil Taggart’s Slacker Podcast, he revealed: "I wanna clear this one up. I was working in the Trocadero centre demonstrating wind-up frogs and I knew that there was something going on 'cause I saw TV cameras and photographers and there was a giant cardboard cut-out of Noel and Liam, so I went down there.

"I just wanted to get on the telly. Joined the queue, grabbed the cardboard cutouts, was doing these stupid 'please photograph me' things, jumping on the back of an open top bus with these cardboard cut-outs and then the next morning running to the newsagents thinking I was gonna be on the front of the newspaper with these cardboard cut-outs.."

He added: "I wasn’t queuing for an Oasis album. My sister was a big Oasis fan, and I later tuned into them and decided they were brilliant, but at the time I was far more interested in getting photographed on the back of a bus with a cardboard cut-out."

When asked about his famous line: "I subscribe to the Umberto Eco view that Noel Gallagher’s a poet and Liam’s a town crier," Doherty said: "What a belter!"