Go inside the tragic life and death of Amy Winehouse, the iconic British singer-songwriter whose emotional lyrics and powerful singing made her a household name.

A Tumultuous Relationship With Alcohol And Drugs

With the number 3 album on the British charts, Amy Winehouse’s dream seemed to be coming true. But despite her success, she began to feel anxious in front of her audience — which was growing larger and larger. To decompress, she spent much of her time at local pubs in the Camden area of London. It was there where she met her future husband, Blake Fielder-Civil.

Though Winehouse instantly fell for Fielder-Civil, many were uneasy about the new relationship. “Amy changed overnight after she met Blake,” her first manager Nick Godwyn recalled. “She just sounded completely different. Her personality became more distant. And it seemed to me like that was down to the drugs. When I met her she smoked weed but she thought the people who took class-A drugs were stupid. She used to laugh at them.”

Fielder-Civil himself would later admit that he introduced Amy Winehouse to crack cocaine and heroin. But the reins were truly off after Winehouse’s second album Back to Black catapulted her to international fame in 2006. While the couple had been on-again and off-again for quite some time, they ended up eloping and got married in Miami, Florida in 2007.

The pair’s two-year marriage was a tumultuous one, including a string of public arrests for everything from drug possession to assault. The couple dominated the newsstands — and it usually wasn’t for positive reasons. But since Winehouse was the star, most of the attention zoomed in on her.

“She’s only 24 with six Grammy nominations, crashing headfirst into success and despair, with a codependent husband in jail, exhibitionist parents with questionable judgment, and the paparazzi documenting her emotional and physical distress,” wrote The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2007.
While Back to Black explored substance abuse, it also revealed Winehouse’s refusal to go to rehab — which her own father apparently supported. Continuing to work was seemingly more important at the time. That notion was supposedly confirmed when the album became her most successful — and saw her win five of the six Grammys she was nominated for.

But Winehouse wasn’t able to attend the 2008 ceremony in person. By that point, her legal troubles had hampered her ability to obtain a U.S. visa. She had to accept the awards from London via remote satellite. In her speech, she thanked her husband — who was then in jail for assaulting a pub landlord and attempting to bribe him not to testify.

That same year, her father claimed that she had emphysema due to crack cocaine abuse. (It was later clarified that she had “early signs” of what could lead to emphysema, rather than the full-blown condition itself.)

The downward spiral was in full swing. Though she reportedly kicked her drug habit in 2008, alcohol abuse continued to be an ongoing problem for her. Eventually, she did end up going to rehab — on multiple occasions. But it never seemed to take. At some point, she also developed an eating disorder. And by 2009, Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil had divorced.

Meanwhile, her once-bright star appeared to be fading. She canceled show after show — including a highly-anticipated Coachella performance. By 2011, she was hardly working at all. And when she did get on stage, she could barely perform without slurring or falling down.

The Last Days And Tragic Death Of Amy Winehouse

Just one month before Amy Winehouse’s death in 2011, she kicked off what was supposed to be her comeback tour with a performance in Belgrade, Serbia. But it was a total disaster.

Clearly intoxicated, Winehouse couldn’t remember the words to her songs or even what city she was in. Before long, the audience of 20,000 people was “booing louder than the music” — and she was forced offstage. No one knew it then, but it was the last show she would ever perform.

In the meantime, Winehouse’s doctor, Christina Romete, had been trying to get her into psychological therapy for months.

But according to Romete, Winehouse was “opposed to any sort of psychological therapy.” So Romete focused on her physical health and prescribed her Librium to handle alcohol withdrawal and anxiety.

Sadly, Amy Winehouse was unable to commit to sobriety. She would try to stay away from drinking for a few weeks and take her medicine as directed. But Romete said that she kept relapsing because “she was bored” and “genuinely unwilling to follow the advice of doctors.”

Winehouse called Romete for the last time on July 22, 2011 — the night before she died. The physician remembered that the singer was “calm and somewhat guilty,” and that she “specifically said she did not want to die.” During the call, Winehouse claimed that she had attempted sobriety on July 3, but had relapsed just weeks later on July 20.

After apologizing for wasting Romete’s time, Winehouse said what would be one of her last goodbyes.

That night, Winehouse and her bodyguard Andrew Morris stayed awake until 2 a.m., watching YouTube videos of her early performances. Morris remembered that Winehouse was “laughing” and in good spirits during her final hours. At 10 a.m. the next morning, he tried to wake her up. But she appeared to still be asleep, and he wanted to let her rest.

It was around 3 p.m. on July 23, 2011 that Morris realized something was off.

“It was still quiet, which seemed strange,” he recalled. “She was in the same position as in the morning. I checked her pulse but I couldn’t find one.”

Amy Winehouse had died of alcohol poisoning. In her final moments, she was alone in her bed, with empty vodka bottles scattered on the floor beside her. The coroner later noted that she had a blood-alcohol level of .416 — more than five times the legal limit for driving in England.