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Anorak News | Fashion’s Victim

Fashion’s Victim

by | 29th, September 2005

‘A WEEK is a long time in the life of Kate Moss, who has mutated from “Cocaine Kate” to “Brave Kate” in the Sun. “The Sun will be rooting for you, Kate. You can do it,” cheers the paper in its editorial.

The victim

What happened? One moment Moss was the pariah of the Western world, the fashion leader who would turn every impressionable teen into a twisted, drug-addled menace. Now she’s brave, and the Sun is wishing her its best of British?

The answer comes on the Sun’s front page. And in “KATE IN REHAB” readers learn that Moss is now spending more than the £200 a day she spooned out on cocaine for a £20,000 30-day course to kick her habit.

The Sun is right behind her. Not that she can hear the paper’s words of encouragement, because The Meadows centre, Arizona, where she’s undergoing treatment, allows her no links with the outside world.

And that might be a good thing, because the last thing ‘Clean Kate’ needs is a relapse brought about by watching the TV show Kate Moss: Fashion Victim, which the Sun says will show Kate snorting cocaine. And for those of you interested in seeing such things, the show will be broadcast on Sky One, the channel owned by Sun owner Rupert Murdoch.

But while Kate the bad alters into a victim, the Mirror, which broke the story of her predilection for cocaine, has a word with a woman who knows her best. No, not her dealer. Her mum.

“My Kate’s great, says the woman who’s been surrogate mum to the supermodel for 18 years,” runs the headline and blurb atop the paper’s Page 3.

This stand-in mum is called Sarah Doukas, and she’s taken a keen interest in her protege ever since “discovering” her 18 years ago at JFK airport.

It was Sarah who broke the news to the model that “Cocaine Kate” was all over the front pages. “I called her immediately,” says Sarah. “She was gutted, absolutely devastated.”

And Sarah was shocked. “I’ve never seen that side of her that they’ve written about,” says she of Kate, a “fantastic mother”. “I didn’t feel it was my business to probe…We’ve spoken to each other every day for 18 years but there are some things I know I can never discuss with her.”

What mother ever knows everything their child gets up to? Even if their surrogate scion is in Milan, a place Sarah is “terrified” of and where she initially sent Kate to with a chaperone.

But models come under “enormous pressure.” And, as Sarah says: “The most vulnerable time is the bloody shows.”

So there you have it. Rather then being feared, Moss should be understood and perhaps even pitied. Moss is not simply getting off her face; Moss is a victim.

And by the time she graduates from The Meadows, she will very possibly be a shining example to all young women and models everywhere…’



Posted: 29th, September 2005 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink