by Daphne Barak
‘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.
November is a busy month. Blake Fielder-Civil is released from prison, having agreed to go to rehab. Amy isn’t there to meet her husband, having just got out of the London Clinic herself, where she was being treated for a suspected lung infection. We are already filming with the Winehouses and they are spending nights in my London hotel. We are sort of ‘living together’.
Initially filming is just with Mitch, who talks about his upbringing, his family, his marriages and, of course, Amy and Alex, some of which I have already written about. But it is also essential that I speak with the rest of the family, particularly Janis, Jane and Amy, herself, the three women in Mitch’s life. Without them a lot of the story will be lost.
I meet Jane, Mitch’s second wife, just before we start filming in November, when Mitch brings her to dinner. Jane was his secretary and they had been having an affair for a long time before Mitch made the decision to leave Janis, Amy and Alex to be with her.
What strikes me first is that Jane is a very pleasant woman; she is also good looking, intelligent and hard working. She is Mitch Winehouse’s wife now, but it becomes clear that when Mitch is there he wants to be in control. To make a point Jane almost has to announce that she’s about to say something: ‘Hey! I need to speak right now! I want to be involved.’
I also noticed this very quickly when I was injured in an accident at the beginning of 2009 and Mitch and Jane were among the many guests who visited me at my vacation home. My heart immediately went out to Jane: the pair of them sat on my sofa but while Mitch talked constantly, Jane struggled to get involved in the conversation. ‘I want to be a part of it,’ Jane said, when we discussed building a website to offer advice for families dealing with addiction and also creating a doc
umentary that would try to deal with the subject of addictions.
Jane is supposed to be Mitch’s ‘First Lady’, but it is clear that is not happening because Amy needs him constantly. In a way, I guess you could say, that is Amy’s revenge. And then there is Janis, with whom Mitch still has a close relationship.
Of course, they’re not the only family in the situation of having had a father leave his wife and children after having an affair, but their subsequent relationships are unusual because of Amy’s problems. Mitch and Janis are still so involved with each other because of their daughter. Trying to save Amy also brings Janis and Jane together on a regular basis. I understand how strange it must be for Janis to have to collaborate with the woman whom Mitch left her for. Equally Jane must also feel awkward because, as Janis loves to point out, as long as Amy is sick, it will always be her and Mitch primarily dealing with it.
The dynamics between these two women and Amy herself are even more complicated. It seems to me that Amy does try to have a relationship with her mother and her step-mother but Mitch always needs to be in control and consequently all these relationships are monitored through him. Mitch is basically the centre point and I’m sure that playing that role is tough for him. Mitch often complains that it tears him into pieces, but I can’t help but feel that he has created this situation and in a way it works for him because it enables him to have full control.
My television crew are ultra-accommodating when it comes to filming Janis at the Intercontinental Hotel in London. She walks with a cane, visibly limping when she arrives, wearing simple slacks and a blouse. She looks very much like her daughter and is a vibrant, energetic woman. She is also very sexual. Very aware of herself, of her large breasts, about which she makes jokes all the time.
In our first interview, it becomes obvious that she is much tougher than Mitch, possibly much colder, in her attitude towards her daughter and her problem. While Mitch is trying to break through a wall to save Amy, Janis’s attitude seems very much: ‘What can I do? She has to come to a decision herself that she is addicted? What can I do?’ Her attitude towards Blake is very defined – to her he is nothing.
I ask Janis what the most difficult moment was for her in the last few years. ‘… It looks like you think things turned really black for you when she married Blake,’ I comment.
‘Yes,’ she agrees, ‘but I believe [Amy] had to have been out of her head to do it.’
‘Well,’ I say, ‘talking objectively what do you think she found in Blake?’
‘I think she saw a chance to “rescue” him,’ Janis replies, rolling her eyes dramatically, ‘because she speaks of him as having [had] a terrible life. She says … he didn’t know what else to do and “I can help him” and it’s … that naivety … that she can help people. That’s what she wants to do all the time.’
‘What’s a day in the life of Amy like?’ I ask.
“Well, she’s not recording at the moment …’ Janis muses.
‘She hasn’t recorded since she met Blake, right?’ I ask.
‘Well, no, but she needs to get back … [to] it. I think Amy is banging around not knowing what to do with herself.’
If she wants to record, though, what’s stopping her, I say to Janis.
‘I don’t know,’ she replies. ‘I think it’s just [Amy] can’t get herself together. When she has to be anywhere she will take forever to get ready. … She’s not a person to rush and she has always taken her time.’
‘I spoke to Mitch. … He was heartbroken that he had to write a cheque for £100,000 for [Amy] missing a show in Paris.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And there was no explanation [for Amy’s no-show]?’ I query.
‘No … Mitch and I, thank God, are looking after her finances otherwise, my goodness, it would probably all be gone.’
‘Mitch was telling me Blake has a very expensive drug habit something like £14,000 a week. … Have you ever seen Amy … on the hard drugs?’
‘Well,’ Janis replies, ‘I’ve seen her where she can just about open her eyes and [is] really not with it.’
‘That’s really heartbreaking.’
‘Yes, I want to say to her “Amy, what are you doing? Don’t you know what you’re doing?” But she has … got herself onto it to help her get through. And I understand that.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ I ask, wanting to hear the answer.
‘Well, she’s finding life to be tough at the moment. And you would think she’s got it all but she hasn’t. She’s … alone.’
‘She’s lonely?’ I query. ‘… She has you, but …’
‘Yeah, but what she needs is somebody who will love her … care for her … look after her on a one-to-one level because she hasn’t got that,’ Janis says.
‘Does Blake love her?’ I ask.
‘I think they are playing the love game,’ Janis responds. ‘It’s not true love. He’s not being loving towards her. …’
‘Do you think Amy understands that she is not loved by him?’ I push.
‘I think what’s happening is with his using emotional blackmail it’s … “if you loved me, you’d do such and such” [and Amy’s] “Well, of course, I love you, of course I do.” And he’s playing a game with her.’
‘What’s their age difference?’ I ask.
‘A year.’
‘But she’s childish?’
‘Yes. But the fact that he is the supplier of the drugs [means] he has the control,’ Janis says.
‘Did she know he was on hard drugs when she met him?’ I ask.
‘She forgave him for it,’ Janis explains. ‘And excused it by saying “Oh, he’s had [a] hard life.”’
‘But Amy’s intelligent – from a “good family”?’ I say, meaning surely she should know better? She knows that hard drugs won’t simply go away, especially as her mother is a pharmacist.
‘She had always said, “They are not for me … I don’t need them,”’ Janis confirms. ‘And probably the marijuana was as hard as it got [before]. … I think it’s a case of [Blake] may have said “Try a bit of this. It’ll make you really feel better.” … I think that’s how it began … He said, “No, really … I promise you it’s good!”’
‘When you saw Blake the first time did you think there was something wrong despite the fact that you didn’t like him?’
‘No!’ she exclaims. ‘I thought he was a nothing! That Amy had taken pity on him.’
‘… When there was the problem,’ I ask, ‘did you think maybe I should call [his parents]?’
‘No, no, no! Oh no!’ Janis stresses emphatically. ‘… I had assessed [Blake’s mother] quite quickly. I realized she … was trying to identify with Amy and Blake … “Oh I’m a youngster too!”’ she mimics. ‘No. She’s. Not.’
‘… Are they still in good communication with Amy?’ I enquire.
‘No! Not at all. … They have not made any effort to contact Amy,’ Janis states.
‘Are they in good communication with their son?’ I query.
‘That I don’t know,’ Janis replies, continuing, ‘… but when I was abroad in Italy, Blake was with Amy and Blake called me “Mummy” – and it was as if he had stuck a knife in my belly. … I felt sick. How dare he call me “Mummy”?! Who’s he?’
‘What did you say?’ I query.
‘I said nothing! I think I probably went silent at that point,’ she adds.
I ask her what she would do if Blake were here. ‘Would you accept him in your house?’
‘No! No! No!’ she says definitely.
‘If Amy wanted to bring him?’ I persist.
‘I’d say “Could you leave him at home?”’
‘Where is home for him?’ I say.
‘In Camden.’
‘Oh, with Amy?’ I query.
‘Well, yes. Or he’s somewhere else. … It’s not a situation where she’s been going out with him and I got to know him because I [didn’t].’
‘You just met him once b
efore?’ I ask and when Janis nods, add, ‘Well maybe you and I are missing something about him.’
‘I wonder about that. When he was on tour with her, he just followed her around like a lapdog and he did nothing. NOTHING! He was just there … she went somewhere and he went there. And he did nothing and he’s earned his nobody position by being a NOBODY.’
‘Do you think Amy has the chance to recover if she remains with him?’ I ask Janis seriously.
‘No, … because he will try to maintain control.’
‘… And, if Amy wants £20,000 for drugs tomorrow?’ I ask. ‘What happens then. You cannot stop her?’
‘No,’ Janis replies. ‘No. Because it’s her money.’
‘What will happen if they don’t divorce?’ I ask Janis.
‘They will kill each other,’ she replies. ‘… Mitchell was saying before they arrested him they were not getting on. They were fighting all the time and Mitchell thinks they would have divorced earlier if he had not been arrested.’
‘But would he be willing to divorce?’ I query.
‘That I don’t know … The problem is he gives nothing to it except drugs.’
‘Does she realize it?’
‘Well … not yet.’
‘So if there is no divorce, how are you going to prevent that?’ I say.
‘… I leave that with Mitchell, because Mitchell is doing all that needs to be done,’ Janis says simply.
This is something that comes through strongly in my discussions with Janis. There is no doubt that she is a brave woman, coping with MS and trying to find a cure or a way to slow down the progression of the disease but, on the other hand, she is still the woman who was abandoned all those years ago by her husband for Jane, who is now his second wife. When it comes to Amy though, whether Jane or anyone else exists is largely irrelevant: it will always be in Janis’s mind and speech ‘Mitchell and I’ dealing with their daughter Amy’s problems. They are Amy’s parents. And I think subconsciously – and I am not for a second saying that it is a conscious thought in Janis’s mind – that it is very convenient for Janis that Amy is so sick and so self-destructive because ‘Mitchell and I’ will always take precedence over everything else. That relationship will always have top priority due to Amy’s constant needs.