Amy Winehouse_ The Biography - Chas Newkey-Burden [54]
Janis was referring to an interview Mitchell had given to Fern Britton. Britton asked, ‘So she is still drinking?’
Mitch replied, ‘She’s not drinking as heavily now as she was then actually but there are other problems. The other problem is the bulimia, which is still apparent, although she’s put on about a stone in weight but it’s still affecting her health; and there are problems with substance abuse as well. But, again, not as bad as has been reported.
‘It’s apparent in her music that she’s smoked dope for quite a while, probably from the age of sixteen or seventeen, perhaps even earlier. She was a complete opponent of hard drugs – in fact, she got up and said she couldn’t understand why people in the music industry took hard drugs – and that changed about six months ago when she got married to Blake. And I’m not saying its Blake’s fault. What I’m saying is Amy’s responsible for her own actions. However, it’s a fact that the hard drugs coincided with their marriage. Well, I knew that they were going to get married, we weren’t completely in the dark but we were kind of hoping that Amy’s mum could have been there at least. So we were a little disappointed, yeah.’
He continued, ‘I don’t read the papers myself. A friend of mine, a guy called Ginger Norman, he reads them for me. Because I can’t bring myself to read the papers every day and he kind of vets the news for me every day because I just can’t face it. He asked me to have a look at this particular piece, which I did do. I phoned the newspaper in question, spoke to the newsdesk. I told them what had happened. They said they had no interest in what I have to say on this subject.’
Soon after the interview, speaking about Blake, Mitchell also told the Star,
‘He doesn’t get Brownie points off me for that, he’s normally smashed off his face too, and the only reason he wasn’t passed out on the floor was because either his drugs hadn’t kicked in yet or he’d run out of them. The way I see it is if he hadn’t been there, she probably wouldn’t have put all that junk inside her in the first place.
‘If Blake were to go to jail for GBH it would probably be the best thing that could happen for Amy… She’d be mortified if he did go to jail but it would be a chance for her to get on the straight and narrow.
‘The trouble is Blake seems to want them to go to rehab together and to be in control – and they’ve been told that isn’t a good idea and the likelihood of recovery is small. If he were in jail for a few months I think Amy would have a better chance of recovering. She needs to get herself sorted before she worries about him.’
Better news came in the shape of Amy’s settlement with songwriter and producer P*Nut over a claim for copyright infringement. P*Nut, whose real name is John Harrison, said he and Amy co-wrote the song ‘He Can Only Hold Her’ in his studio in 2006. P*Nut’s solicitor, Bob Page, of Jayes and Page, said, ‘This represents a very satisfactory outcome for P*Nut, who considered his contribution to the song to be perfectly obvious. He was therefore extremely disappointed not to receive the credit he deserved on Amy’s album and furthermore at the extent of the resistance he encountered in securing his fair share of the copyright. Whilst Amy and her publishers took the matter to the brink, P*Nut is pleased that common sense has prevailed and he is now looking forward to seeing his contribution properly recognised on future exploitation of this song.’
There was also a light-hearted moment when Amy complained that her songs were being used in scenes during the TV soap Emmerdale, in the Woolpack pub. ‘Amy’s very image-conscious. When she licensed her