Warning: This article contains discussion of drug addiction and alcoholism which some readers may find distressing.
Amy Winehouse’s former husband has spoken out for the first time in a lengthy interview, where he revealed whether he believes he was responsible for the singer’s tragic 2011 death.
Blake Fielder-Civil met Amy at a Camden bar in 2005, with him telling Paul C. Brunson during the latest episode of his We Need To Talk podcast that she had told him she was a musician.
When he felt a little apprehensive about that as a music video assistant, he said she told him that she was actually ‘good’ - which, of course, was true.
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The Grammy-winning artist and Blake went on to engage in destructive romance that was on-and-off, with the pair deciding to get married in 2007 before ultimately divorcing two years later.
Sadly, in 2011, Amy, who publicly battled addiction – along with Blake – was found unresponsive at her Camden home at 27.
Afterwards, Blake became a hated man in the UK, with many fans blaming him for Amy's downfall and death - something he's now addressed.
What did Blake Fielder-Civil say about his relationship with Amy Winehouse?
Despite introducing her to heroin, Blake says he's not responsible for her death, but did have a 'part to play' in her addiction.
Amy and Blake’s tumultuous relationship ended up with the creation of her most acclaimed album, which sadly would be her last.
Back To Black was written before the pair reconciled and married prior to their eventual split.
In it, Amy revealed that the man she was singing about liked ‘blow, and I love puff’, which are the street names for cocaine and cannabis, respectively.
But Blake says he didn’t push her into her addiction, and that she would have been an addict with or without him.
He told Brunson that it just so happened that they fell into it together, telling the host: “First actual dependency, where I'm waking up and going, s***, I need to use something to feel normal was around that time, this would have been 2004/5 time.”
But this came around the same time that Amy was also dabbling in habitual drug use.
His ‘part to play’ in Amy's addiction struggles
He added of his late wife’s struggles prior to their relationship: “Amy had started trying cocaine with their ex-partner. It was known that Amy had experimented with drugs and it was nothing to do with me.”
However, he lamented that he did begin her journey with heroin, but didn’t want her to become addicted to it.
“The heroin was something as I said that I tried, let's say ten times, smoked it over a period of six months with some friends,” he said. "That's where I was at with that. But yeah, the first time she did it was with me, and it was probably my sixth time.”
“My stance now is that I know a lot of people, especially people reading media twenty years ago would have an idea that Amy's passing is my responsibility,” he said. “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.”
“No, there was no encouraging or not,” he went on to say. “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?’
“Amy never, ever got to a stage of IV drug use of intravenous injecting. I did. I would say my time post Amy's passing especially was about as miserable and as full on that any drug addict could get.”
How he found out about Amy's death
Two inquests into Amy’s death determined the singer's blood-alcohol content was five times over the legal drink-drive limit, which led to her cause of death being recorded as accidental alcohol poisoning.
Blake, who was in prison at the time after being handed a 32-month prison sentence for domestic burglary and firearm offenses, was told by staff of Amy’s death.
He shared in his tell-all interview that the last letter he received before her death was from Amy herself, as the pair had been talking about the possibility of 'reconciling' before settling on being friends.
He recalled: “The week Amy passed, I was in jail, unfortunately. We were still very much talking about the possibility of reconciling again. So I would say the definitive moment I realised that wasn’t gonna happen was when I got told that she'd passed away."
He said prior to her death he 'had this massive fear that something's going to happen to her if I'm not about', adding: “So when they told me that [she was dead], my first thought was, this is my worst nightmare, it's not true. So as my brain was grasping at it'll be a hoax.”
Explaining that he had to hold in his tears as he walked back to his cell, he was then comforted by his cellmate.
Blake went on to talk about his sobriety, and how he is finally 'clean' and 'happy' after working 'hard to get to this' point.
He said he would want her to know that, because it would make her happy to hear it.
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Topics: Drugs, Amy Winehouse, YouTube, Podcast, Music
Britt Jones