Apologies to The Times of London for copyright issues. Considering the situation, TTOL deserves full credit for coverage of Amy's situation. Can't imagine anyone complaining at having this mirrored.
This piece from Daphne Barak is on their web site. This seems to be a matter of life or death. Amy has been on the dark side of survival since the criminals connected to Babyshambles -- "Headlock" Jeannevol, mainly -- and Blake and his gangsters got hold of her in 2005-2006-2007. Amy is an abuse victim. What we are seeing with drugs and booze is a slow suicide.
Grown-up demons in little Amy
When Daphne Barak filmed Amy Winehouse for a documentary last month, she kept a diary. It reveals the singer as an affection-craving child who has switched from drugs to drink and who can turn nasty in a flash. No wonder her father says he can no longer cope
Friday, April 24
I am standing by the pool wondering when Amy Winehouse is going to emerge from her villa. Then, suddenly, a small figure jumps on me, clinging and showering me with kisses as if I am her oldest, dearest friend.
It’s Amy, in a bikini top and tight shorts. I notice a huge bruise on one of her legs.This is not the first time we’ve met; I’m here in St Lucia with a television crew to complete a documentary we are making about Amy and her family — the working title is Saving Amy.
We’ve been given a beach villa in a row of four that are patrolled day and night by security. Amy has one, her father Mitch and a couple of his friends have another, and the third is a recording studio where Amy is doing work for her new album and a concert she is about to give on the island as part of the St Lucia festival.
After kissing my producer, she decides to throw a welcome dinner for us. She seems very excited, rushing back to her villa, then popping straight back to count how many of us there are. And she talks in salivating detail about all the delicious food we’ll be having.
In the evening Mitch leads us to the restaurant. Amy — dressed in a mini-mini orange dress — is already there, looking anxious. She hugs me and introduces me to “my close friend Wiki”. It turns out that Wiki, who lives in St Lucia, has just returned from the funerals of two people she knew who were recently killed in an accident. “But Amy asked me to come. I couldn’t say no to her.”
Amy whispers to me: “That’s when you know that somebody is your friend. She’s my close friend. ” Amy has known Wiki for all of two weeks.
Her other new friends arrive: an Italian couple and their daughter, aged about seven, and one of her girlfriends. Immediately, Amy leaves the table, chasing them and teaching them how to dance. She may be 25, but her physique is so slight that you could easily mistake her for one of three little girls. There are whoops of laughter as they play for the next two hours; it’s obvious that Amy feels much more at home with these girls than she does with the grown-ups.
Later she turns her attention to me, covering my dress with a series of napkins. Everyone is staring. She keeps saying: “Daphne, I want to take good care of you.”
When the food arrives she insists on serving us. Everyone, she announces, has to start with rice on their plate. As she starts dishing it out, I notice her hands are shaking so badly that she can barely hold a plate.
Because she is busy feeding us, no one seems to notice that she isn’t eating; she is just pushing the food around her plate. I wonder, not for the last time, if she has truly overcome her anorexia.
I present her with a set of lip glosses that I’ve brought as a gift, but she can’t open the little box and quickly loses patience. When I open it for her, she asks one of her security men to bring her a lip pencil and then shakily tries to outline her lips.
She is childlike in her need for affection, constantly coming up to hug us. Yet all through the evening she keeps disappearing for a smoke or — as her father suspects — a drink. Then another vanishing act — but this time she doesn’t return. As we walk back to my villa later, Amy suddenly reappears with her bodyguard. She has changed her dress for another, a skimpy blue number.
She looks at me hesitantly, unsure what to say. It’s as if the grown-up world is too complicated for her. When I thank her for dinner, she is visibly relieved and hugs me ferociously.
Saturday, April 25
Today is my birthday. I meet Amy — in gold bikini top — at the bar next to the beach. She says she is planning a celebration. I ask her teasingly whether she is going to sing Happy Birthday to me, à la Marilyn Monroe to JFK. Amy says she’s sorry — she doesn’t have the right outfit with her.
She orders food, then disappears, only to return with a three-year-old boy called Ricky. And she starts feeding him — instead of eating the food herself. When he drops his lollipop, she rushes out to wash it for him. Ricky’s parents don’t seem to be around and Amy has taken over the role of mother. Even so, she runs off every few minutes, asking her father to watch the child. Later someone spots her at another section of the bar, gulping down drinks.
When she comes back, she peers at my green cocktail and asks what’s in it. I say: “You wouldn’t like it — it’s not sweet.” She tries it and makes a face. “Does it have alcohol?” she asks. I admit it does. Within seconds she has drained two-thirds of my glass. Mitch and I exchange glances. Has she swapped one addiction — to heroin and crack — for another?
Later he confides: “It’s still a very bumpy road . . . There have been many relapses [since around Christmas]. She didn’t [give up drugs] all of a sudden; she was talking about it for two or three months. Then she checked all the options and favoured going to substitute drugs. “Look, there will be more relapses. But who would believe, six months ago, that we’d be at this stage? That she’d be walking, laughing, hosting dinner for you, singing? It’s amazing . . . My daughter seems happy. ”
I ask whether Amy is still in touch with her estranged husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, who admits he introduced her to hard drugs and who recently instigated divorce proceedings.
Mitch says she isn’t: “I can understand what she’s going through and also what he’s going through. They’re two people who love each other and have come to the realisation that they cannot see each other. It would be dangerous for both of them. “But I understand how difficult it must be, not to be able to see the person you’re in love with. Look, maybe one day — if they’re both clean and strong enough — they can see each other. But for now they both understand that it can’t be.”
When Amy herself mentions Blake in conversation, her tone is dry. I don’t have the impression that she’s longing to be with him again; on the other hand, his name is clearly not taboo.
Saturday night
Today we’re having my official birthday party. Amy is all dressed up in high heels and another brief dress. After hugging me she complains that her dad thinks it’s too short. I say: “But all dads are like that — they don’t want their daughters to look that inviting.” And, I add, she should take his remark as a compliment because she looks so sexy.
She glows with pleasure. What she had perceived as rejection has been transformed into a compliment. As others arrive, I overhear Amy saying: “Daphne said I’m sexy. She said I’m sexy.”
While the champagne is still being poured, she empties her glass in one swallow. Then she turns towards me and starts singing her own version of Marilyn Monroe’s birthday song. For a few seconds this shaky, nervous waif is transformed into someone immensely powerful.
As we give her a standing ovation, Amy bows. Then she runs off to change her minidress.
At the restaurant, Mitch seems reluctant to order. He’s edgy, worried that Amy has done a bunk. He seems so exhausted with all the emotional strain that I say: “Let’s order — let’s not wait for her.”
Then Amy reappears in an even shorter red dress, with a pink zipper at the back. She sits next to me. I say: “An Hervé Léger dress! I have many of his dresses and none of them is that short.”
She asks me to stand up and then — in the middle of the crowded restaurant — starts to undress. She wants to show me how she has folded her bandage dress from knee length to almost vagina level. I tell her that the knee length would make her look much sexier. She ignores this and complains: “I don’t have a new dress for my concert.”
I tell her not to worry — I have a couple in my luggage and she can have one. This cheers her up. Briefly. Less than half an hour later: turmoil. Amy, who has been flitting from one seat to another, has said something offensive to a guest who offered her some food. Mitch roars at his daughter and she slinks away. She looks like a child who has just been sent to the naughty corner.
When I find her, she hugs me and starts crying: “I need to go right now. My daddy wants me to go. I have been a bad girl. I drank too much . . .” She’s sobbing loudly. When Mitch comes towards us, looking angry, I push Amy towards him, saying: “Your father loves you very much.”
Everyone is outside, posing for my birthday photos, but I can see that Mitch is reluctant to smile for the camera, reluctant to show by any sign that he approves of Amy’s behaviour. She hugs me tightly.
Later her father tells me: “I can’t approve of her addiction and drinking. She should know that.” And, frankly, he has a point.
Sunday, April 26
It’s mid-afternoon and I’m sitting with Mitch at my villa. “Amy has been drinking from the morning,” he says. His tone is bleak. “I don’t think I’ll come here again. She said to me today, ‘Dad, thank you for pulling me out of drugs’, and I said to her, ‘But you are the one who decided to pull out. You can do it again and stop drinking’.”
He sighs: “After she almost died twice, to see her walking, smiling . . . she has progressed so much. But now, if it’s alcohol instead of hard drugs — I don’t think I can go through the same thing again. I’ve decided to distance myself, and whatever happens, happens. It’s her life. It’s her career. It’s her decision.”
Monday, April 27
I decide to throw a barbecue party at my villa. Everybody loves the idea, particularly Amy.
In the late afternoon I bump into her at the bar with some of her new “best friends”. She is unsteady and mumbles that she has to work all night in the recording studio. Oh, and she’ll be too busy for the barbecue — the same barbecue that so excited her a couple of hours ago.
She starts to talk loudly about her parents. Then she asks a stranger what songs she should record or perform and deliberately turns her back on a group of friends. Her behaviour is becoming nasty.
We are supposed to film her in the recording studio today, but I don’t see much point while she is so difficult and unpredictable. When I say this to Mitch, he looks ready to explode and rushes over to the studio to confront his daughter. After a few minutes he returns, saying: “Okay, let’s go filming — Amy’s expecting us.”
I’m nervous. But as we arrive, Amy runs over to give me a hug. She dances for the cameras, then suddenly stops the music to say: “Let’s put on that song.”
When the music starts again, Mitch’s eyes fill with tears. The song is Daddy’s Home. Amy is now sitting on the drums and beating out the rhythm: “Dad, dad, come here . . .” She motions to Mitch and gives him her seat at the drums. As he begins to drum, she picks up a guitar and accompanies him. At the end of the song, she runs to him and gives him a kiss on the lips. Mitch is still looking very emotional. Before I leave the studio, Amy clamps me in her arms and promises to come to the barbecue.
In the evening, Mitch looks edgy again. From time to time he asks if anyone knows where Amy is. Just when we’ve given up on her, she makes a Hollywood entrance: big smile, short dress, hair up.
She tells me: “I did [my hair] myself. I wanted to look good for your party.” Mitch says later: “I told her she looked good. It’s important to give her
compliments from time to time and build her confidence.”
She’s slightly manic, rushing out to get her laptop, then setting it up to play us some old romantic songs. Then: “Let’s have ice-cream.” Teetering in her alarmingly high heels, she insists on serving each one of us — and she watches me beadily to make sure I’m eating.
Whoops — she’s tripped and hurt her leg. We rush to bring her first aid but she sits on her father’s lap, dismissing the wound and saying: “I don’t want to spoil Daphne’s party . . .”
She reminds me that I’ve offered her one of my two new dresses. She wants to try them on. I say it’s really late; maybe tomorrow. But Amy wants to come to my villa now. She grabs my hand and drags me — my entourage, her entourage all following.
Mitch looks apologetic as she runs with me upstairs to my bedroom, where she tries on my two dresses, decides she wants both and suggests she give me two of hers in return. I say: “No, thank you.”
It’s past midnight and she keeps trying on each dress in turn. I’ve had enough. I say: “Amy, take one dress and go to sleep.” She starts to walk out with both dresses.
As her bodyguard and Mitch — who have been waiting outside the room — try to intervene, I add: “Okay, Amy. I’m giving you one as a gift. You want to steal the second one? Okay, go ahead — steal.”
Amy switches into a little girl who needs approval. She is melting, hugging me over and over again and saying: “You’re so sweet. You’re so nice . . .” But her father lays down the law: “Amy, she is giving you a very expensive gift. But she is giving you one new dress, not two new dresses.”
Now she is dragging me to her villa next door to look at her dresses. Her worried father is following. So is my entourage, her entourage. In her bedroom she hugs me and then shows me two badly stained Hervé Léger dresses. Her father is beside himself. Even Amy realises how bad they look. She says: “I wore them a few times. But you can clean them, right?”
Mitch steps in: “No, Amy, she can’t . . .” Amy insists I should try another of her dresses.
As my last shot of the evening, I make her promise to go on stage “and show everyone how big you are”. She throws her arms around me. “But I showed everyone how big I am five years ago,” she says, insecure. I disentangle myself, bale out and go to bed.
Tuesday, April 28
I’m about to leave the island. Amy shows up with her father to say goodbye. She is wearing cut-off jeans and a bikini top; the femme fatale of last night is once again a little girl. She hugs me again and again.
I notice at one point that she is sucking her thumb. Mitch jumps up and silently pulls it out of her mouth. My producer wishes her good luck for the concert.
“But I am big,” she says. “I don’t need luck.”