In-laws want you to stop buying A Winehouse music

bassie

It was hard to know where to post this - there are so many suitable threads for it today...As there are so many Winehouse fans on the Strut, I guess it deserves its own place.from the Guardian:Amy Winehouse's in-laws stage intervention on radioGiles and Georgette Fielder-Civil urge fans not buy the singer's records because she and Blake, their son, are addicted to drugs Paul MacInnesTuesday August 28, 2007Guardian Unlimited The Amy Winehouse saga took another, highly public turn today after her in-laws staged what could be described as an intervention live on national radio.Giles and Georgette Fielder-Civil, the parents of Winehouse's husband Blake, appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live this morning, imploring fans to stop buying the singer's records because she and Fielder-Civil are addicted to drugs."Georgette and I both believe that they are drug addicts, and they don't believe they are," Fielder-Civil told the Victoria Derbyshire programme. "I think they believe they are recreational users of drugs, and they are in control, but it seems to Georgette and I that this isn't the case."The interview took place days after Winehouse and Fielder-Civil were photographed covered in cuts and bruises after an alleged fight. Mrs Fielder-Civil, who believes her son and daughter-in-law are addicted to crack and perhaps heroin too, has fears that their story could end in tragedy.Mrs Fielder-Civil said: "I think they both need to get medical help, before one of them, if not both of them, eventually will die."And her husband added: "We are concerned that if one of them dies, the other will die. They are a very close couple, and if one dies through substance abuse, the other may commit suicide."Meanwhile, Amy's father has also commented, insisting his daughter's life is in danger and that a boycott of her records would not help."Will it do any good? No," he said. "People are clutching at straws. There's only one way out of this, and anyone with drug experience will tell you, the only way out is not sectioning them, not locking them up; at some point they are going to reach rock bottom, and at that point they will say, I don't want to do that any more."He said he had spoken to Amy yesterday and she sounded fine. "We are not talking about people who are in imminent danger of death."Asked what he felt when he saw the photographs of the couple in newspapers last week, he said: "I thought that here are two people that are completely out of control, and yet an hour later they are walking back to the hotel arm in arm."As a parent, it was sickening, worse than sickening. I wanted to die, but I can't die, I have a family and friends and loved ones who need me."

mannybolone

Wow, just when you thought this story couldn't get more surreal.

Whatever - I'm just glad Sharon Jones gets to ride off all this shit and look spectacular.

bassie

Seriously - surviving a heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine and alcohol OD is pretty surreal. Looking at this laundry list of uppers and downers - don't they all just cancel each other out?

elise

Seriously - surviving a heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine and alcohol OD is pretty surreal sooooooooooo Soulstrut.

rootlesscosmo

[eyeroll]c'mon winehouse, crack? how utterly tacky.[/eyeroll]

Aser

I have been a fan of her music for a long time, but even my patience is wearing thin w/ all this nonsense. I really don't care anymore.

DocMcCoy

This is getting ridiculous. Her in-laws can be forgiven for not knowing how the business works, but they seem to think that her record company must check the charts each week and then send a van round to her house, filled with cash, which she immediately spends on drugs. Therefore, if people boycott her records, the cash will dry up and she won't be able to do drugs anymore. Would that it were so simple. I read elsewhere that they were also urging the record company to cancel her contract. All I can say about that was, if drug use was the music industry equivalent of gross misconduct, and thus acceptable grounds for immediate termination of a contract, there'd be a lot of labels with very skinny rosters right now.

The sad thing about this, apart from the obvious Sid & Nancy parallels and the persistent, idiotic received wisdom that says you're somehow less of an artist if you're not struggling with some kind of drug or alcohol problem, is that Amy Winehouse has now reached the stage where her personal issues, rather than her music, are what defines her as far as the public's concerned. She'll be having to answer questions about this period of her life for as long as she's making music, whether she moves beyond it or not. I think this is pretty depressing.