Saving Amy (13 page)

After Blake’s arrest, Amy moved out of their home in Camden to Bow in East London. The world’s media seemed to camp outside her door, catching Amy’s every move and encounter on camera. Friends alleged that Amy’s house move was prompted by her wanting to get away
from the bad memories of her overdose and Blake’s arrest, which were associated with the Camden house she had shared with her husband.

Others, however, were quick to comment on Amy’s choice of company, such as musician Pete Doherty, who himself reportedly had a drug problem, and reports emerged that Amy’s behaviour was getting worse, if anything. Blake’s mother is alleged to have stated that Amy was taking more drugs than ever.

Amy seemingly told friends that if she didn’t deal with her problems over Christmas she would check into rehab in the New Year. She spent the holiday period in the Caribbean with friends and a newly blonde Amy was seen in London in early January 2008.

In the end, however, it seemed that matters were perhaps taken out of her hands when a video was posted on the web of Amy allegedly smoking crack cocaine at a party at her home in Bow. In the
Daily Mail,
Mitch said that the video ‘may well be the best thing that has ever happened to her … it may finally be the thing to focus her mind and convince her to get the help she needs to quit for good’.

On 24 January 2008, Amy, accompanied by her friend Kelly Osbourne and Mitch, checked into a rehab facility, the Capio Nightingale Hospital, near Marylebone, London. Universal released a statement saying that after talks with her label, management, family and doctors, Amy had come to realize that she needed ‘specialist treatment to continue her ongoing recovery from drug addiction’.

The move, while hailed by many Winehouse fans, also brought much speculation about whether Amy would attend the Grammys.

Sure enough in early February 2008, the BBC, among others, reported that Amy’s application for a US visa had been declined. A spokesman for Amy commented that she was disappointed but was concentrating on her recovery. At the final hour, the US embassy reversed its decision, but Amy was now set to appear in front of a select audience made up mostly of family and friends at the Riverside Studios in West London.

Her performance was to be broadcast live via satellite to the awards, a decision that she stuck to, singing ‘Rehab’ and ‘You Know I’m No Good’ to a standing ovation from the LA audience. The Grammys were a huge success for Amy, who picked up five of her six awards (Herbie Hancock picked up the Album of the Year for
River: The Joni Letters).

A visibly shocked Amy thanked Island Records, her parents and Blake, her incarcerated husband – and, also, London because ‘Camden Town is burning down’, a reference to the fire that was destroying large parts of the area where she and Blake had lived.

Afterwards, Amy returned to the Capio Nightingale hospital and rehab.

‘Do you think Amy knows how much you love her?’ I ask Janis and Mitch. ‘She cries out for more attention [from you]. She basically takes all your attention.’

‘I think that is possible,’ Janis replies. ‘That is what she does. The thing is, it is there for her. It is unconditional.’

‘But does she know [that]?’

‘It is funny you should say that … Maybe it is Amy’s way of attention seeking,’ Mitch says.

‘It is like saying “Hey guys! Me! Me! Me!”’ I throw up my hand.

‘Well …’ Mitch responds. ‘She
has
got our attention.’

‘As a parent … do you have your moments when you say “What have I done – what
did
I do wrong?”’ I ask them both.

‘No! No! No!!!’ Janis says emphatically. ‘I don’t go down that road. … You have just got to … move on. [There] is no question of “It is my fault that this happened” and looking for [someone to] blame. That is a guilt thing.
No. No.
Everything I have done it was all in place.’

‘You have been a good mum?’ I ask Janis.

‘Yes!’ she replies without any hesitation whatsoever.

‘She is a wonderful mother,’ Mitch interjects, although it is my perception that he is saying this because he left Janis alone with the kids when he married Jane. Mitch had been conducting his affair with Jane for years and so even before he left, he was only half there for Janis. So I think he wants to jump in to say that Janis is a wonderful mother – it’s the gentlemanly thing to do and, of course, it eases his guilt.

‘I have
no
doubt about
that,’
Janis continues.

‘Have you asked Amy … “Why? What are you missing? What is going on?”’ I query.

‘No. Because … as far as I am concerned [Amy] always says, “Mum, don’t worry, everything is okay. Don’t worry.” She doesn’t want to worry me,’ Janis ends simply.

‘But she does [make you worry …]?’ I query.

‘Yes,’ Janis agrees. ‘But … what do you do? As a parent, you are a parent and you cannot change the nature of that.’

‘I know spending a lot of time with Mitch right now that he is actually 24–7 worrying about Amy. The phone is ringing and it’s … “Oh, my god!” Or [if] it doesn’t ring, [it’s] “What is happening?”’ I comment to Janis. ‘How much Amy-time do you have a day? Not just like spending time with her – but
worrying
about her?’

‘I think it is hard to put it actually into time,’ Janis replies. ‘… It is like life. … There is a part of me that says, “No … I know that Amy is going to be all right.”’

‘… Do you know how difficult it is to overcome addiction?’ I ask Janis.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘It [takes] a huge strong will,’ I continue. ‘Do you think she has a strong [enough] will to get well?’

‘I don’t know,’ Janis replies. ‘That is a tough one …’

Mitch interrupts, ‘She
has
got a tremendous strong will.’

‘To cure herself?’ I question.

‘Absolutely? I do believe that in six months, a year, two years ….’ But then – after facing my questioning – he adds, ‘She will always be a recovering addict. There is no such thing as anybody who is cured.’

After a short time in rehab, Amy discharged herself, this time appearing days later at the BRIT Awards, where she performed with Mark Ronson and mouthed ‘I love you’ at the camera to Blake who was still on remand awaiting sentence.

It would not be long before the papers were again speculating about Amy’s mental and physical health and her
marriage when it was reported that she had shared a hotel room with artist Blake Wood, or ‘Good Blake’ as the media referred to him, after the BRITS. Amy also appeared to have scratches on her arms, fuelling speculation that she was self-harming again.

Professionally though, Amy seemed to be doing well: rumours abounded that she was set to start work on her next album (subsequently quashed when Amy reportedly delayed the recording sessions that Island Records had arranged for her in the Bahamas) and she also found herself nominated for three Ivor Novello songwriting awards.

But, on a personal front, Amy was reported to be again spiralling out of control. In April, she was cautioned by police after going an a drink-fuelled bender that involved her slapping a man, kissing another one and then reportedly openly smoking drugs in the street. A few days later, ending the apparent ‘96 hours of carnage’ she was again in the papers, this time for having allegedly cheated on Blake with ‘good boy’ Alex Haynes and telling friends that her marriage to Blake was over.

By May, however, Mark Ronson, who had been working with Amy on the theme tune to the latest James Bond movie, an honour for any musician, had cancelled their recording sessions, leading to rumours that that the couple had argued over Amy’s fitness to record.

Over the next months, Amy’s very public deterioration was tracked in the press. After reports that Amy had collapsed again in June 2008, Mitch claimed that his daughter had been diagnosed with emphysema and that if she went back to smoking drugs it wouldn’t just ruin her voice but would kill her. But just days later, a very frail
looking Amy was present at Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday celebration in Hyde Park, a performance that attracted a lot of attention when she changed the words of the Specials’ 1984 song ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ to ‘Free-ee Blakey My Fella’.

In July, Blake who was formally charged with perverting the course of justice and grievous bodily harm, was sentenced to 27 months in prison, nine of which he had already served. He was expected to be released by the end of the year. Amy wasn’t present at his sentencing.

After an alleged 36-hour bender in July 2008, involving what one newspaper later called ‘an inhuman amount of hash’ Amy was hospitalized, having reportedly overdosed for a second time. This led to concerns over her mental health – some journalists even suggested that she had shown symptoms of schizophrenia and others that she might have suffered brain damage as a result of her two overdoses.

It was after this that Mitch first contacted me. At that time, I didn’t really know that much about Amy Winehouse. My friends Gary Thompson of News International and Simon Bucks of SKY News kept pushing me to pursue the story of ‘Amy’s addictions’. But it was only after my initial meetings with Mitch in London at
Les Ambassadeurs
and the Intercontinental hotel, when we began to speak properly about what it was like to fight his daughter’s addictions, that I really felt that, although Amy was not as big in America as she was in UK, there was something more to the story. But I had no clue how much ‘more’.

In November 2008, at the second of these meetings, we discussed some of my most famous television specials with Michael Jackson’s parents during his sensational trial. The first, I produced with Liz Murdoch and aired just after his arrest. The second aired on the eve of the beginning of Michael’s trial.

It occurred to me, while speaking to Mitch, that he and Janis face many of the same questions that Joe and Katherine Jackson had to answer to during their son’s trial. All of them have been or are being publicly judged as parents; they also have in common the loneliness that comes from being unable to share their concerns about their children without feeling the embarrassment or the condemnation of strangers. And there is also perhaps the same public perception of the Winehouses that, like the Jacksons, they have allegedly made money out of their child’s talent.

In these early encounters, I find Mitch articulate, warm and sometimes painfully candid, even tearful, when he discusses Amy and addiction. We cover a lot of ground and I am still thinking about whether I want to pursue this further when he utters the words that make my decision. ‘
If I can share what I have gone through and what I know by now and help one family at least, this is what I would like to do’.

He wins me over. We schedule filming.