Her father Mitch remembers that when she was a child, Amy Winehouse used to pretend to be choking, or deliberately go missing in London’s Brent Cross shopping centre ‘just to get a laugh out of it’. ‘What she really likes,’ said Mitch, ‘is for people to worry about her.’
And worry about her people did. The past few years have been agonising to watch as the vulnerable singer so publicly played out her descent into a drug and alcohol-ravaged hell.
The tragic conclusion came on Saturday in the big home she bought with the £10million fortune from her ruined yet spectacular career.
Her father insisted only a few weeks ago that she was a recovering addict and had been clean of drugs for 18 months. What is clear, though, is that this prodigiously talented young woman had been recklessly seeking oblivion for some time.
In recent weeks she had been found several times by bodyguards passed out after frightening binges on vodka. She would drink out at night in the bars near her home in Camden, North London, with a crowd of toadies and hangers-on.
An addiction to alcohol had replaced her previous dependencies on heroin, cocaine and crack.
Even though Amy, who as a teenager was an enthusiastic smoker of marijuana, was warned in late May that she had to stop drinking or it would kill her, she was not able – or willing – to.
At one point this spring she confided in a drinking buddy that she felt that only Blake Fielder-Civil, the grammar school dropout and junkie who was her ex-husband, could ‘save her.’
And worry about her people did. The past few years have been agonising to watch as the vulnerable singer so publicly played out her descent into a drug and alcohol-ravaged hell.
Memories: Amy's father, Mitch, left, said that Amy enjoyed making other people concerned for her well-being
Her father insisted only a few weeks ago that she was a recovering addict and had been clean of drugs for 18 months. What is clear, though, is that this prodigiously talented young woman had been recklessly seeking oblivion for some time.
In recent weeks she had been found several times by bodyguards passed out after frightening binges on vodka. She would drink out at night in the bars near her home in Camden, North London, with a crowd of toadies and hangers-on.
An addiction to alcohol had replaced her previous dependencies on heroin, cocaine and crack.
Even though Amy, who as a teenager was an enthusiastic smoker of marijuana, was warned in late May that she had to stop drinking or it would kill her, she was not able – or willing – to.
At one point this spring she confided in a drinking buddy that she felt that only Blake Fielder-Civil, the grammar school dropout and junkie who was her ex-husband, could ‘save her.’
Two of a kind: Amy with ex husband Blake Fielder-Civil, who she felt at one time could put her life back on track
