Comeback of 'cocaine Kate'

She is just out of rehab after a drug scandal which has seen her stripped of some of her most lucrative fashion contracts - but Kate Moss is already gracing magazine covers again.

Vanity Fair has taken the plunge and splashed "cocaine Kate" across its front cover.

The 31-year-old supermodel is shown in a charcoal Chloe camisole, above a headline questioning: "Kate Moss - can she come back?" And the answer to that seems to be: yes she can, and she probably already has.

Merely by putting the supermodel on its front page, the American magazine can expect to see a boost in sales on both sides of the Atlantic.

It dedicates 11 full pages to the model, including lavish fashion shots taken several months ago but never used.

The cover comes barely seven weeks after Moss was caught on camera snorting "line after line" of cocaine at a recording session with boyfriend Pete Doherty. The damaging revelations saw her ditched from lucrative contracts with fashion houses including Burberry and Chanel, and even best friend Stella McCartney's own clothing line for H&M.

Mere days after that, further stories emerged of sex parties and wife-swapping among her circle of friends.

After issuing an apology for her drug-taking, the model finally relented and went into rehab in the Meadows clinic in Arizona - which she left after a month-long stay last week. A spokeswoman for Vanity Fair today insisted they had picked Moss merely because she is "topical".

"She is interesting and in the news," came the terse statement from the magazine's New York office.

In the meantime, Moss is reported to be renting out her St John's Wood home and moving to her Gloucestershire farmhouse with three-year-old daughter Lila Grace. She has hired two minders to keep her away from drug dealers and Doherty's circle of friends.

Media commentators insist Moss - perhaps because of rather than despite the revelations - still guarantees mass sales.

"At the end of the day people are fascinated by Kate and once one publication has taken the plunge it's not so hard for another to follow," said an insider.

Julie L Belcove, deputy editor of W, said: "It has always been Moss's complexity... that has made her so compelling to look at.