Moss' wild-child image wearing thin

Kate Moss' wild-child image is wearing thin. Picture / Reuters

Some reporters must be in Kate Moss's bedroom to see her wake, to judge by the level of detail certain papers have carried about the supermodel's morning rituals (and they were not writing about which toothpaste she uses.) Ordinarily much of the minutiae would make a newspaper lawyer turn white with horror at the libel writs they would invite, but now it seems Moss is fair game.

This week the Daily Mirror carried a story based on a video that purports to show the model preparing and snorting lines of cocaine in a west London studio, where her pop star boyfriend Pete Doherty - a self-confessed crack and heroin addict - was taking part in a late-night recording session with his band Babyshambles. The film appears to show Kate - mother to two-year-old Lila Grace - snorting five lines of the white powder in 40 minutes, while drinking vodka and chain-smoking cigarettes.

The model's lawyers are examining the Mirror's five-page photo splash and the accompanying transcripts of Moss' alleged conversation - as might be expected in view of their victory over the paper's sister title, the Sunday Mirror, which paid out "substantial damages" after printing a story claiming Moss had collapsed into a cocaine coma at a fashion show in Barcelona in 2001. The paper had to concede in court its story was untrue.

But many other papers have now taken the Mirror's video as a green light to print rumours about Moss's drug habits that have been circulating for years. Quoting anonymous "sources" and "friends", the Daily Mail makes claims about heroin and crack cocaine. And the Sun discloses "Kate's £200 a day coke habit" - an amount which, considering she earns around £4m a year, sounds well within budget.

Many in the fashion and music industries have thought it was only a matter of time before Moss careered into serious trouble. But the tone of doom intensified earlier this year when, in January, at her 31st birthday party, she met 26-year-old Doherty. She told friends that she found him "exciting and dangerous". She took him to meet her parents, who concurred, at least, with the "dangerous" bit. It was not a happy encounter. "Ever since, they've called me the crackhead," Doherty has reportedly whined to his friends.

There is a chilly irony in all this. When Kate Moss first burst into modelling as a skinny, wide-eyed child-woman, her look was branded "heroin chic". Some critics claimed it encouraged anorexia. Others feared her androgynous looks encouraged paedophilia. This was only good for her career.

And yet, as the years passed, Moss demonstrated something more enduring. She became the face of the 90s - and beyond. There was something distinctive about her beauty - with her almond eyes and chiselled features.

She admitted she had spent most of the 90s drunk and had got too involved with drugs. "Dabbling is fine," she told David Bowie in Q magazine. "But when I was bang on it, that wasn't a nice time. Drugs enhanced all the misery and I got into this spiral. I still drink but I don't do drugs."

Would that the world believed that now - not least the marketing people at Chanel, Christian Dior, Roberto Cavalli, Burberry and Rimmel - with whom Moss has the contracts on which her fortune of £30m is based.

Some are likely to have clauses in their contracts that would allow them to sack her if she brings their products into disrepute.

There is, of course, a fine line between a wild-child image and behaviour that is irresponsible in a way which might jeopardise sales. But there is another group of people who are not so ambivalent as the marketing folk may be about all this kind of thing. They are social workers, lawyers and judges.

The Daily Star, under the headline "Coke head Kate's baby battle" was quoting "a source close to" Hack, the father of Moss's two-year-old daughter, as saying he would not hesitate to seek custody of the child if the pictures proved to be true.

Few outside the charmed circle where such behaviour is considered wildly glamorous would demur from the suggestion that, at the age of 31, it is time that Moss grew up. But there is no sign that this is imminent. Yesterday in New York, a Daily Mirror reporter approached the couple for a quote about the video.

"F*** off," Moss said, "I don't want to know. F*** off, f*** off, f*** off! Just f*** off."

Doherty pulled her away. "Come on, we'll read it tomorrow anyway," he said. "We'll deal with it then."

Kate Moss may find that, when she does get around to reading the lurid prose, the damage is already done.

- INDEPENDENT