Pete Doherty Puffs On Crack Pipe In New Libertines Promo

The troubled star spent more than 10 years battling addictions to heroin and crack cocaine, and after a lengthy spell at a rehab clinic in Thailand, he declared earlier this year (15) that he is finally drug-free.

During his career he has often been accused of glamourising drug use, and now he has risked angering his critics again by referencing crack-smoking and heroin-taking in the clip for the reunited band's new track, Heart of the Matter.

The promo is set in an interrogation room with Doherty and his fellow Libertines frontman Carl Barat torturing a man who is handcuffed to a chair.

Doherty slaps and laughs at the man before acting out a scene in which he puffs on a glass crack pipe and blows the smoke into his victim's mouth, holds a cut-throat razor to the man's neck, and finally injects him with heroin.

The video's director Roger Sargent says, "The Libertines have never been a band to lack candour or bravery... almost to a fault. Their honesty, their friendship has played out in the public domain often with catastrophic consequences. In Heart Of The Matter, Peter and Carl reflectively talk about the damage and abuse they have caused themselves over the years, openly mystified that they have survived thus far. It's a catharsis, a bleak, bold and brave one.

"To that end, when we talked about making the video for the song we all felt it had to be similarly honest. The unsettling subjects could not be shied away from. On the contrary, these had to be faced head on."