by Daphne Barak
love is a losing game
‘What is happening to my family and to Amy is going on throughout hundreds and thousands of homes, not just in this country but also around the world,’ Mitch explains to me when I ask him to expand on why he feels this urgent need to help other families suffering addiction problems.
‘The drug problem in this country is deep-rooted. I suppose it is deep-rooted throughout the world. We are in a fortunate position because we can go and speak to people and we can get the best advice and we can get the best help. There are hundreds and thousands of people who can’t do that. What we want to do, and what I want to do, is to be able to help people in a position similar to my own, so that we can – perhaps through a website or through a charity, we haven’t decided yet – make counsellors, therapists, solicitors available to people who under normal circumstances wouldn’t be able to afford to go and see these people. That is how I feel. That is how we could put something back into society.
‘I am very lucky in that I have got a very wonderful and understanding wife. I have got a wonderful and understanding ex-wife and I have got fantastic family and friends, so I never feel lonely in that respect …’
He continues, ‘Apart from professionals obviously, I am able to discuss things confidentially with my family and my friends and they are a great source of comfort to me.’
I ask him if he needed to research the effects of drugs.
He replies, ‘Unfortunately, I have made a study of it and that’s why this situation can’t last forever. It has to … eventually stop. That will be when Amy is ready to stop. … I am ready for her to stop right now. I was ready for her to stop two years ago. It is not when I am ready; it is when she is ready. One of the other things, Daphne … that I want to get across to people in a similar situation to me … [is] it is not their fault. As long as they have tried to bring their children up the best way that they can …
‘… And another important message to get across is to carry on with your life. The worst thing is … I have done that, is to stop and just sit in a room and cry all day. Nobody wants that. I don’t want that. I have got a family that needs me and I want people to understand that they can carry on with their lives as they did before. Nobody has died.’ I look at Mitch questioningly here and he repeats, ‘Nobody is dead.’
‘But you have not been able to have a normal life, a normal job. … It is very difficult for you as well,’ I comment.
‘It is difficult but we manage to cope with it,’ he says. ‘It is stressful.’
‘So’, I ask. ‘What was the most difficult day for you and Amy?’
‘The most difficult day, I think was … in about April 2008 … [and] I am not telling stories out of school; it has been documented. She told Blake that she had been unfaithful to him and she really went into – she really was in a very, very bad situation. She cut herself and she was upset and Blake was upset and he had every right to be … and she was in a very bad situation.
‘She was in a recording studio … in Henley, which is in Oxford, and I went down there and it was at that point that I tried to have her sectioned. To protect her. She had an episode which had been going on for a few hours. … What people don’t understand about sectioning is people are … detained for their own safety and for the safety of other people, but to do that you have to have a GP, the Clinical Psychologist and the Local Area Health Authority [representative there] and by the time those three people [usually] convene the episode is over.
‘So, in other words, it is very, very rare that anybody is sectioned because by the time they get there it is finished, and that is exactly what happened with Amy. When the doctor got there … it had passed and she was back to “relative normality”.
‘And what we found out at that point is [that] the only person who can request a mental health assessment is the next of kin – and the next of kin is Blake. I am not saying that Blake wouldn’t want to protect her but because he was in prison at the time it was just an impossibility anyway. Having said that, had she been psychotic and really a threat to herself and anyone else, they would have dealt with it, but to request a mental health assessment [requires] the next of kin and that was the worst situation ever.’
‘What was worse, to call the doctor or to initiate it?’ I ask.
‘… To initiate it and to think that my child could be taken away,’ Mitch replies. ‘I wanted her to be taken away to protect her. She wasn’t suicidal but she was clearly unwell and that is what I feel is wrong with the laws in this country … you read about it all the time where somebody should have been detained under the Mental Health Act and they have pushed somebody under a train. … or they have stabbed somebody. They should have been detained under the Mental Health Act, so these people are walking around, when for their own safety and the safety of others they should be detained.
‘Amy isn’t in that situation,’ he clarifies. ‘… I have just given you an extreme example, and the laws in America aren’t that much different. … We are not trying to lock people away. We are trying to help them and even if somebody is … sectioned, after 72 hours if they display any kind of improvement they are released. So, really, when you think about it and when you reflect upon it, there isn’t really any way that somebody can be helped in this country unless … they say “please help me.”’
I ask, ‘[Isn’t] that part of the treatment to say: “I am sick”?’
‘That’s right,’ Mitch says. ‘… Amy has instigated a drug replacement programme and she has put on, since those horrible days, at least 20 pounds in weight and her drug consumption has greatly reduced, although there is the odd episode and there have been situations where she has had a seizure. … [O]bviously it is very serious [but] it’s not really as it was. Things have improved.’
I ask if this is because Blake has been in jail.
‘I am not saying it is because he is in jail. What I am prepared to say is that since May … her situation has generally improved. …’
I say to Mitch, ‘If I were Blake sitting here now, in one sentence what would you tell me?’
‘Well what a good question. … I would walk out! I really don’t want to talk to him … I wouldn’t say anything. I have tried reasoning with him by doing all the normal things any normal person would do, and unfortunately it has fallen on deaf ears. Right now, especially after the last episode with him saying that he wants “to pull Amy’s knickers down”, I would get up and I would walk out.’
‘And, what would you say to Amy?’
‘I would tell her how much we love her. How much we will always love her. That is never going to change … and how much we need her. How much she needs us. … I want my daughter to be a whole person again. That is what I would say to her.’
‘You are a good man,’ I say quietly. Mitch is very receptive to such a simple comment. It is as if he needs to hear it again, so, I repeat, ‘You are a very good man.’
My television crew and I spend days filming with Mitch, and sometimes with Janis, in November. Mitch and Jane, a lovely woman who has to show so much understanding about the constant attention Amy’s situation demands, sometimes sleep over at my hotel.
Mitch does find it therapeutic to relive memories of his own childhood, his life with Janis and the children, the journey to Amy’s stardom, and then dealing with Amy’s problems, including having to face his daughter almost dying twice, and then trying to find the best possible way to save her. But between filming and dealing with Amy, pretty much around the clock, he is exhausted at night, so Mitch – and Jane sometimes – stay in London to spare them the drive back and forth from their home and also just to allow them to be in a different environment where Mitch, in particular, can relax.
It also means that Mitch can visit Amy, who is back in hospital at the London Clinic in Harley Street, not that far from my hotel in Park Lane. According to the media, Amy has had a bad reaction to the medication she has been taking as part of a drug replacement programme. Rumours also ab
ound that Amy and Blake’s marriage is over as Amy has not visited him in rehab. Mitch is very worried and is also having to cope with drug dealers who are apparently trying to smuggle drugs into Amy, even though there is a security team in place.
Mitch says he needs to get the word out to them that there is no money for drugs, and perhaps they will go away.
One evening in early December, my producer, Erbil, and I decide to have dinner with my close friends Bitu Bhalla, his wife Karen and their children at their home in Richmond. I have known Bitu since December 2007 when Asif Ali Zardari (now president of Pakistan), Benazir Bhutto’s husband, introduced us, just two weeks before his wife’s assassination. Benazir was like my big sister. So, Bitu and I have shared many political secrets and we have been close friends since then. But our lives are so different from Mitch’s daily concerns – thank god! Karen is going to cook Indian food for us tonight. Mitch is going to come along so that he can spend a relaxing evening away from his troubles – and also because he is practically living at my hotel with us at the moment.
Mitch comes back from Amy’s hospital late in the afternoon. He is in a great mood after seeing his daughter and has already told me that she looks so well. ‘She’s had a haircut and, Daphne, she looks like Marilyn Monroe,’ he tells me.
He picks up the phone to speak to Raye, Amy’s manager. He says, ‘Raye, I am just here with Daphne and I am telling her that I just saw Amy and she looks fantastic. … Her skin is clean again. She has gained some weight. She looks so good! She is talking again about recording music!’
Mitch is so happy that he suggests we don’t use my chauffeur to get to Richmond, but that he drives instead. ‘I am a taxi driver after all!’ he says.
Just before we leave he takes a phone call, after which he says, his voice heavy with sarcasm, ‘My son-in-law – can you imagine – has failed his urine test in the rehab that we were paying £30,000 [for]. … He is going back to jail and … he will have to serve his full term.’
The fact that Amy is paying for Blake’s rehab is not news to me as Janis alluded to it when we first met, saying that Amy hadn’t wanted to pay for it but that Blake had called her and begged her to, telling her that if she loved him, she would do it.
Mitch has made it clear to me by now that he can’t stand Blake and doesn’t know how to get rid of him. Janis feels this more so, as is evident from our conversations. Mitch is also pleased as he tells us that Amy, who seems so well now, ‘hasn’t spoken to Blake in weeks,’ so everything looks great.
Mitch promises us a grand tour of London as Erbil and I climb into the back of his cab. We listen as Mitch tells us, via a microphone in the front of the taxi, about his city, London. Mitch and Erbil share a particular interest in football, so he points out football stadiums on the drive to Richmond. We laugh a lot because, when Mitch isn’t stressed, he is very good company and is very entertaining.
Just before we arrive at Bitu’s home, Mitch’s phone rings again. He answers it and changes visibly before our eyes; the relaxed, humorous man disappears. ‘What do YOU mean? How can that be?! Who allowed HIM to do that? I don’t understand!! How did that happen?’ he fires back at whoever he is talking to. He then breaks off, calling someone else. The whole thing is so intense.
‘How did that happen?’ he questions. ‘When did that happen? So HE IS on the run. …’
He breaks off to say to us, ‘You won’t believe that Blake. … When I told you that Blake … was sent back from rehab to jail, apparently he didn’t go … He disappeared and he is on the run. And he surfaced in Amy’s hospital … so drunk and, after hours of taking drugs … so out of it. And now they are together … I am talking to security and they cannot stop him because he is her husband.’
But Blake is also on the run from the police and his arrival at Amy’s hospital room is yet another problem that Mitch now has to deal with. While Mitch is trying to call Amy, he asks me to call Bitu, who also happens to be a top lawyer. He has advised Mitch on several occasions since I introduced them, and he is very aware of what has been happening in the Winehouses’ lives. Bitu says he will meet us outside his house.
By the time the cab pulls up outside Bitu’s house, Mitch has called the security guard back: ‘Where is he? How did it happen? Let me talk to Amy! Oh, they’re in a closed room? OK, get Amy on the phone and call me back.’
Within two minutes he is speaking to his daughter. ‘Amy,’ Mitch says, ‘put Blake on the phone. No! I will not yell at him. Just put him on the phone.’
I tell him: ‘Mitch, collect yourself. Be calm.’ And he follows my advice.
I am impressed that Mitch is handling the situation. He seems almost calm. Mitch tells his son-in-law, ‘Listen Blake, you have to go and turn yourself into the authorities. We will take care of you. [But] you cannot stay with Amy right now. It is not good for Amy. [And], it is not good for you.’
Bitu is waiting for us, smoking a cigarette, as he watches us descend from the taxi. We discuss whether we should go to the hospital but we decide collectively that Mitch, while composed at the moment, might not be able to hold it together when he sees Blake and might make the situation worse. He also has Bitu to advise him and Bitu’s two other guests are also top American lawyers.
Finally we find ourselves inside Bitu’s home, with Bitu’s wife, Karen and their two beaming kids all present – and they are all being very supportive of Mitch’s predicament, even though it is interfering with our dinner plans. This is meant to be a relaxing evening and is our first family meal at the Bhalla home. It is also obvious that Karen has been cooking all afternoon, if not all day, for this meal.
Bitu and Mitch leave us to try to sort out the situation and are later joined by John Grimmer and Dan Paige, the two other lawyers, when they turn up.
Eventually Blake agrees to turn himself in, and it’s only when Mitch is told this news that he starts to relax and the rest of us can really enjoy the evening. He even reaches the point where he can recount the evening’s events with his unique brand of humour, making all of us, including John and Dan, who we give a lift to at the end of the night, scream with laughter at his stories.
When we get back to the hotel that night, Mitch says, ‘I am exhausted.’ I reply that I am exhausted, too, just from watching him. Mitch asks to stay over at my hotel. He seems so needy, so lonely that I say, ‘Sure!’
But, in reality, this is his life. This is what saving Amy is all about – and this is part of the toll that it takes on everyone within her orbit.
Just a few days later, however, Amy’s behaviour seems to be deteriorating again and Mitch is very upset.
He tells us that the hospital and the doctors want to kick her out. She has been ordering champagne and not only drinking it herself but offering it to other patients in the hospital as well. It is completely ridiculous. He says that since Blake went there, it has all gone downhill.
While he is sitting with me, Mitch receives text messages from Blake and Blake’s mother, Georgette, which make him fume when he reads them. I ask him why he’s looking at the texts if they’re upsetting him so much. It seems rather co-dependent behaviour: Blake is sitting in jail and he knows that with one phone call, with one text message he can ignite the whole situation, making Mitch upset and then Amy upset because Mitch is upset. Blake’s mother is also reacting to him and all he really has had to do is send one text message.
Blake knows exactly which buttons to push. Mitch is very transparent, so it is quite easy for both Blake and Georgette to upset him.
There is clearly a war of words going on between Mitch and Blake. Mitch shows me a text that his son-in-law has sent, in which Blake has written:
I am not going to leave your daughter like you left her and her mother.
Mitch admits what is obvious – that Blake knows how to hit a nerve. He says ‘He knows exactly how upsetting it is to me and how hurtful it is to Amy.’
‘Well, if he knows how to push the right buttons and you know that he knows
that … just ignore the messages.’ I try to reason with him.
At this point Mitch shows me more messages from Blake, including one in which his son-in-law seems to suggest that he will be willing to go away if Mitch will just pay him a few months’ rent on which to live. Mitch is prepared to do this just to get Blake out of his daughter’s life.
The whole negotiation is taking place through text messages.
I ask him what will happen if Amy and Blake do divorce and they still have the co-dependency issues that they appear to have. ‘If they are drawn to each other [even] after their divorce,’ I say to him, ‘they can still see each other and still have the same horrible effect on each other.’
The ‘divorce’ only amounts to a piece of paper, after all.
Mitch is quiet as he hasn’t thought about that question. His main concern at the moment is the drug dealers, who seem to be finding ever more inventive ways to get drugs to his daughter in hospital.
‘There was a flower delivery,’ he tells me, ‘and it got me suspicious. I started to open the flowers and found a drug inside the leaves of the flowers.’
He tried hiring security to intimidate the dealers but Amy didn’t warm to them, so he hired another team, but their job is to secure Amy, not to stop her from taking drugs or from drinking. Mitch has also tried to put it out that there is no cash for drugs, but his problem is his daughter. It is Amy’s money, after all.
‘She gave £7,000 in cash to somebody as a gift and she doesn’t understand what it means,’ he tells me, adding, ‘I am trying to stop it but on the other hand, of course, it is her money. What can I do if she sends somebody to the bank? I am trying to be involved and make sure that … the bank … calls me. [But] if she really wants something, there is really nothing I can do.’