Amy Winehouse’s ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, has given his most personal interview to date, sharing an insight into his life with the Grammy Award-winning icon
Amy Winehouse’s ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, has claimed he’s not responsible for her death. The Grammy Award-winning musician tragically died aged 27 on July 23, 2011.
While Amy had publicly battled addiction, at the time of her death, the You Know I’m No Good songstress had been clean from drugs, having previously spent time in rehab. An inquest determined that her cause of death was due to alcohol poisoning. During the inquest at St Pancras Coroner’s Court in London, assistant deputy coroner Suzanne Greenaway concluded that Amy had died from “accidental alcohol poisoning”. The official verdict was given as death through misadventure.
In a new interview, Fielder-Civil, who was married to Amy between 2007 and 2009, has spoken out about their relationship and claimed that he didn’t encourage Amy to take heroin, a Class A drug. Here, we take a look at Blake’s biggest bombshells from his appearance on Paul C Brunson’s Need To Talk podcast.
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Introducing Amy to heroin
Speaking to Paul, Blake defended claims that there was “no encouraging” Amy to take heroin. When asked what the truth was behind previous newspaper headlines, Blake said: “I mean, to be fair, you know, back in the day, I would say yes, that’s me, all my fault. But like I said, you know when we first met. I need to defend myself slightly on things, you know, it’s not fair to the people who love me to think untruths. Amy had started trying cocaine with their ex-partner.”
When Paul asked whether he encouraged the singer to take heroin, Blake responded: “No, there was no encouraging or not. It was a sense of, in the same way that if I said, I know this is going to sound strange to a lot of people, if I said to my friend, would you want a beer in the pub?
“I’m not hoping that they fall into alcoholism… I wasn’t thinking with any luck they’ll become a drug addict. There was no destructive element to it. It was ‘Do you want to try this?'”
Meeting Amy
Blake claimed that after winning some money on a horse race, he walked into a pub and saw Amy playing pool. “I was quite good at pool, so obviously I asked for a game of pool. I said I’ll play next. And then from there, you know,” he said. The music video production assistant went on to explain that he and Amy visited McDonald’s for their first date, with one of her songs playing in the background.
From here, the former couple fell madly in love, with Blake claiming Amy had his name tattooed just weeks later. He said that Amy would often visit him at work, and one day, she took him upstairs to the balcony to show him “something”. Speaking to Paul, he said: “Two weeks, ten days maybe. It was cool. Obviously. You know, you’re like, wow, for me, that’s me.”
‘Bond with Mitch’
Blake told Paul that he and Mitch, Amy’s dad, had become close with the former cab driver visiting his son-in-law in prison. He said: “I’ll be honest, before Back to Black, I saw Mitch maybe twice. After Back to Black, I saw him about 5 or 6 times a week. He was a lot more involved. It was just how it was. We had a relationship. We were friends, to some extent, obviously, he was my father-in-law.
“But, yeah, I liked the guy. He visited me in jail. And we had a dialogue, he knew I wanted Amy to be clean at that stage.” Blake claims that Mitch encouraged him to divorce Amy, for the sake of themselves, as they were “not going to work”. When Blake managed to get himself sober and clean from drugs, he asked whether Mitch would help him with a house deposit.
“Of course, we’ll look after you,” Mitch reportedly said. When Blake was reported to be in a critical condition in hospital due to suffering with organ failure, Mitch did put his thoughts aside.
Writing on X, then known as Twitter: “Terrible news about Blake. Remember Amy loved him. Let’s pray for his recovery.”
Amy’s death and ‘reconciliation’
When Amy sadly died in 2011, Blake was serving a 32-month prison sentence at HMP Leeds for domestic burglary and firearm offences. He was hurled into an office and was shown the news reports of her death, confirming the devastating news. “My head was swimming straight away,” he said of being shown BBC reports.
Blake refrained from crying until he got back to his cell, with his cellmate instantly consoling him. Blake, although he’s not a religious person, said he prayed every night that Amy would be “alive” when he was eventually released from jail, as he had “this massive fear that something’s going to happen to her if I’m not about.”
He also claimed that he and Amy were talking on a regular basis, with their last call taking place just days before the singer died. Blake claimed that he and Amy had also spoken about reconciling once he was released from prison. He said: “It was never final for me, the divorce wasn’t the end.
“The arguments weren’t the end, the press, her dad, none of that was strong enough to pull us apart, it was only her and me saying nobody understands this, but us, let’s see if we can show that we get clean. You do that, I’ll do that. And then we’ll see where we’re at. But it didn’t happen… We actually spoke when I first moved up to Yorkshire after I got out of rehab up there, we spoke about getting married again which probably gave her dad nightmares.”
Blake went on to claim that around five months before Amy died, he went to visit Amy at her “lovely flat or house” in Marylebone, and they were “as intimate as we have been” during their meeting, which lasted several hours.
‘Part to play in Amy’s death’
Speaking about Amy’s second studio album, Back to Black, Blake recalled visiting the singer on a video shoot, during which Amy informed him that the album is “all about you.” He says that reading the lyrics are similar to reading old love letters, detailing intimate aspects about their relationship with one another.
But there was one lyric that was exceptionally hurtful: “He left no time to regret, kept his d**k wet, with his same old safe bet,” from the title track of the record. He explained that this lyric in particular proved awkward with the woman he was seeing at the time, who assumed she was the “safe bet”. He said: “I had no ownership of it, it wasn’t that case, it was just a sense of bloody hell that’s kind of exposing in a way.”
And while many would assume that Blake and Amy’s relationship was full of toxicity and hurt, Blake said they had “a lot of fun,” together. Blake went on to say: “That’s one of the things that I’ve always – My stance now is that I know a lot of people, especially people reading media 20 years ago would have an idea that Amy’s passing is my responsibility. As I’ve always said – I never shirk from any responsibility. If I’ve done something, I’ll put my hand up to it, but I’m okay. I’m not okay but I’ve made my peace with yeah, I had a part to play.
“But there’s one thing aside from everyone else that also had a role to play. Amy herself had agency, and that is in no way at all disrespecting her by saying that but Amy did what she wanted to do and even knowing the drinking had started to hurt her, she carried on. And I just feel that sometimes that can get lost on that album.”
However, Blake did go on to say that Amy was “helplessly in love,” but said she was “actually a very strong woman.”
Frank offers confidential advice about drugs and addiction (email frank@talktofrank.com, message 82111 or call 0300 123 6600) or the NHS has information about getting help.
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