The truth about my famous ‘Party girl Kate Moss’ shot: Greg Brennan’s best photograph

‘The tabloids will always try to sensationalise. But it was 6.30pm. If Kate really had been falling out the door blind drunk, it’s not a picture I’d particularly want to take’

I have photographed Kate Moss a fair few times. The first time was probably around 1990, during the Johnny Depp days. I also shot her with Jefferson Hack and many of her other boyfriends, but it was only on official occasions, Topshop launches and things like that.

There was a period when whatever she did, 200 photographers would turn up. For her 33rd birthday, I was asked to cover her party at the Dorchester hotel. Then I got a call saying she was at the Donmar Warehouse theatre watching a matinee of a play with Rhys Ifans in it. “Could I go over there and get a picture of her leaving before arriving at the birthday party?” When I got there, there must have been 200-250 people outside. They had the front door surrounded – photographers, camera crews, fans, you name it. It was absolutely packed. I quickly realised that getting a decent picture was going to be very difficult.

I decided to go back to the birthday party. But on my way to my car, I walked past the back door just in case. I used to photograph Nicole Kidman at the Donmar leaving backstage [when she was in The Blue Room in 1998], and she always came out the same door. As I walked around, the door was open and Moss was sitting there on the stairs. Pete [Doherty, her partner at the time] was standing to the right of the picture. She looked at me, she recognised me because I’ve been photographing her for many years. I started taking the picture. She didn’t react, didn’t say anything.

As she came out, I opened the door of the waiting car as she got in. The photographers were starting to arrive. It sounded like a stampede of horses, 200 guys flying around the corner. They realised they’d been tricked but she was able to take off and nobody was able to follow her and she arrived at her birthday party completely unbothered.

I didn’t shoot the party, I left everybody else to it and I was home by 7.30pm. I edited six images and sent them around the newspapers, went to bed. I got up the next day and was quite surprised to see every single front page had used this picture.

That year, 2007, all the papers were doing “Kate Moss party girl”, “Party girl Kate” stories. I think a lot of people interpret this picture as her being drunk or that it was the early hours of the morning, because the tabloids will always try to sensationalise it. But it couldn’t have been any further from the truth. It was 6.30pm in the evening. If Kate was falling out the door that night blind drunk, it’s not a picture that I’d particularly want to take. I prefer glamorous Kate.

The picture remains popular. Most of the people who bought limited edition prints of it are women, from the age of 16, right up to about 45 or 50. A lot of the young women say that she’s their icon, they look up to her, and I think that this image just captured her right at the peak of her modelling career and fame. I met a Vogue photographer who said he had tried to recreate the image in his studio but it was impossible. He described it as “a cross between a ballerina and Janis Joplin”. That made sense to me. It has got a certain fallen angel quality about it.

Even though this is the picture that became infamous and the one that seems to just resonate with everyone, it’s not my favourite image from that night. There’s one of her standing up walking towards me. That’s always been my favourite, with her hair blowing in the wind. It’s just an amazing fashion shot.

I’ve been doing celebrity photography for 37 years; it’s changed a lot. I preferred the 90s because there weren’t as many photographers then. I enjoyed going out to work at night, processing and developing my own pictures and dropping them off to picture desks at 6am. That’s how I learned the skills of photography much quicker. If I wasn’t very good, I wasn’t going to be able to eat.

Social media has changed an awful lot. It’s easier for celebrities to promote themselves whereas in the 90s, we were that social media for them. Nothing has changed with regards to celebrities being photographed. I find them all quite receptive, more than happy, because I tend to cover film premieres where they’re there to promote themselves. It goes hand in hand. I’m not going to turn up at their front door two days later. It becomes harassment at that point.

• The Big Shot: Photographs by Greg Brennan is published by ACC Art Books.

Greg Brennan’s CV

Born: California, 1973
High point: Having my portrait of the queen enter into the Royal Photographic Collection
Top tip: Never give up on your dreams.