Fifteen years after Amy Winehouse’s death, her mother, Janis Winehouse, is recalling her daughter’s fast and unexpected rise.
For the anniversary of the five-time Grammy winner’s death on July 23, Winehouse wrote an op-ed for UK platform iNews, calling her daughter “a victim of her own success.”
"She didn't want it, but it just followed her. And she'd be like, 'Who, me?'" she wrote, per NME. In 2014, Janis published memoir Loving Amy: A Mother’s Story.
Amy Winehouse was 27 when she died in Camden, England, on July 23, 2011, from accidental alcohol poisoning.
Janis Winehouse traced the roots of her daughter's addiction to a lack of self-belief, despite the vocalist seeing success with her 2003 debut album, Frank, three years before the release of her wildly successful Back to Black, the last album released during her lifetime.
"She didn't have confidence. Hence the alcohol. I think it's the same with many, many addicts with alcohol. The alcohol takes away the pain. And that is a horrible thing with addiction,” Winehouse wrote.
"Once you're addicted, you're addicted. The only boss is the addiction. People say, 'Oh, no, you just stop doing such and such.' They don't get it. You can't stop because your body is saying I need it,” she continued.
Janis Winehouse added that she’s learned to “get on with life” in the years following her daughter’s death.
Amy Winehouse’s former husband, Blake Fielder, pushed back against blame for her death on a March episode of We Need to Talk. Fielder, who was married to the vocalist from 2007 to 2009, said that Winehouse had “agency” and “did what she wanted to do.”
On July 19, the Amy Winehouse Foundation, founded by the singer’s parents in 2011 to support those struggling with substance abuse, threw a live tribute concert in Camden named “A Day for Amy.”
