Amy Winehouse_ The Biography - Chas Newkey-Burden [39]
GMTV presenter Smith – who, incidentally, was wearing a top that looked like a plate of hummus with cumin and paprika sprinkled over it – asked, ‘Amy, is that hair yours, and is anything living in it?’ Amstell interrupted to gasp, ‘That’s not the GMTV way!’ then Amy answered, ‘Oh, yeah it’s all mine, ’cos I bought it.’ Soon after this, Amy revealed that later that evening she was due to meet Pete Doherty to record a song. Amstell shrieked, ‘Don’t go near him! Do something with Katie Melua. There you are.’ Amy sank back in her seat and said, ‘I’d rather have cat-AIDS, thank you.’
Amy’s Melua quip grabbed the loudest laugh of the night so far but host Amstell soon regained the upper hand when Amy told him that her ‘new thing’ was making a noise that sounded like ‘psht, psht’. ‘Is it?’ Amstell responded. ‘I thought it was crack.’ Amy turned to him and asked scornfully, ‘Do I look like Russell Brand?’ Amstell jumped straight in and said, ‘Uh, yes.’ (Incidentally, Brand once wrote, ‘Amy Winehouse had bigger hair than me. She says she uses polystyrene cement. Must get some.’)
Other classic one-liners from Amy on the night included (on Ben Elton), ‘I don’t think there’s such a thing as integrity or being a sell-out, I just think he’s a wanker.’ When Amstell said how much he preferred the younger Amy, who had appeared on his Channel 4 Popworld show, she said, ‘We were close,’ and then, running her palm down his face, added, ‘Now she’s dead.’
She then turned and spat over her shoulder. ‘I will wipe it up,’ she pleaded. ‘I just didn’t want to gurgle.’ Amstell said, ‘This is not a football match. You come here, full of… crack… spitting all over things.’ Amy sighed, ‘Let it die, please. Let it die.’ Amstell responded, ‘The addiction I’d like to die… this isn’t even a pop quiz any more: it’s an intervention, Amy.’ During the closing round, Amstell asked where the following lyric came from: ‘They tried to make me go to rehab…’ Amy jumped in with, ‘I said no, no, no.’ Amstell told her, ‘Correct. In hindsight… I think maybe “yes”, maybe…’ Amy – who said on her I Told You I Was Trouble DVD that she loves Amstell – took it in good spirit.
Amy’s performance was much discussed that week and has since become a huge hit on YouTube. One user of that website, called Stuart, even filmed his own video in response to it. ‘I saw her the other day on Buzzcocks’, he says. ‘What happened? She looks like a train wreck!’
Before long, Buzzcocks would become mired in controversy when Ordinary Boys singer Preston stormed out in disgust after Amstell made some disparaging remarks about his wife Chantelle. Donny Tourette attempted to replicate Amy’s wit when he appeared on the show but was eaten alive by Amstell’s and Bailey’s wit.
Looking back on her entertaining television spots, Amy is characteristically unrepentant. ‘No, it doesn’t really bother me,’ she sneers. ‘There have been times when I’ve done stuff on telly and I’ve been drunk because I was bored. Why not be drunk? The thing is I’m not trying to protect “Winehouse, the Brand”, know what I mean? I don’t look at things in a long-term way. I’ve got a long time between sound check and the actual show so fuck it, I’ll get drunk.
‘Apparently, the other night at a gig, some girl came up to me afterwards and she goes “Hello” and gave me a kiss on the cheek, and as she went away she goes to my boyfriend, “God, she’s fucked, isn’t she?” and I just saw red and smacked her. I don’t remember this at all. Then I took my boyfriend home and started beating him up.’
At a concert in Brighton, between songs, Amy once asked the audience where the best venue for a post-gig game of pool could be found in the seaside town. She had