Amy Winehouse_ The Biography - Chas Newkey-Burden [72]
I am hoping that Amy’s superintelligence will give her the confidence to draw back, too. It is her choice which path to follow but I want her to choose the right one and move on soon. I want her to become a legend – but in her lifetime, not after.
If I met her today I would give her a big hug and say: ‘My dear Amy, you were never expelled. Instead you were admired and loved, as you are today. Please try to harness these feelings to help you get back on track.
I know how hard you can be on yourself. I also remember that you don’t like being told what to do. But think back to the time when you wrote that what you really care about is people hearing your voice.
All of us who care about you want you to fulfil your unique destiny.
Also, in Amy’s defence, it must be remembered what stresses she was under at this point. She had spent the afternoon visiting Blake in prison – and had her beehive searched on the way in! – and was utterly distraught by the experience. A friend of hers insists that Amy ‘wasn’t drinking before or after the gig and stuck to Lucozade all night’. Frankly, even if she was drinking before the gig, only the coldest heart could blame her for doing so after she’d gone through the horrific experience of visiting her husband in jail and having to leave him there and perform at a concert in front of thousands of expectant fans.
Lloyd Webber’s words were balanced, considered and fair, which is more than could be said of the media storm that descended upon Amy in the wake of the Birmingham concert. Scenting blood, the press reported that her tour manager had quit. Thom Stone found traces of heroin in his system from, he claimed, passively inhaling the fumes when Amy and Blake took drugs. He showed Amy a doctor’s note warning her that the pressures of being her tour manager had been ruining his health. ‘He was constantly bailing her out,’ said a source. ‘He was watching them get off their head on drugs and wondering whether Amy was even going to get up on stage. It was a nightmare job.’
In the heady atmosphere of the week, this was reported as a major setback for Amy. However, as someone close to her revealed, she was far from disappointed at her tour manager’s resignation. ‘When he produced this note, Blake and Amy thought it was a joke. They didn’t get on with Thom and were taking the piss when he tried to pull that excuse to leave. They wanted rid of him anyway.’
By this stage, though, the media were relentless in their suggestion that Amy was on the brink of suicide. The London Paper’s front-page headline was typical: AMY ON THE BRINK OF MELTDOWN. The paper’s story reported that ‘a bedraggled Amy Winehouse left her north London home early this morning amid fears she was on the brink of a meltdown.’ Not that journalists were the only people feeling concern towards Amy. Fans on the forum of her official website discussed a rumour that she had died from a drug overdose.
There were also profound fears for Amy much closer to her home during the same week. In the early hours of the morning, Amy’s parents called an ambulance to her house, amid fears that she might be on the brink of suicide. A source said, ‘Amy’s family are petrified she’ll do something stupid. They know she’s very low at the moment and misses Blake terribly. They were trying to reach her on the phone yesterday evening and they were also trying the flat in Hackney where she’s been staying but they couldn’t get in touch with her. They immediately feared the worst and called an ambulance and police to go and check on her. But, thankfully, Amy showed up and was fine.’
Indeed she was fine, as her brother Alex confirmed during an interview with GMTV, in which he attempted to bring some sanity to the increasing madness of the media’s coverage of Amy. ‘I spoke to her last night. She told me to give her cats a kiss. She sounded fine, definitely,’ he said. He said that he had tried to get her to mend her partying ways but said that he hadn’t been able to get her to listen. ‘When