Following her untimely passing, this talented musician has been honored by friends, family
members, and music industry cohorts, who continue to share obscure facts and previously unknown
information about her.
From the good to the bad, here are some of the things we learned about Amy Winehouse
after her death.
On July 3rd, 2015, the Asif Kapadia-directed documentary Amy debuted in New York and Los
Angeles.
The highly-anticipated film included intimate videos from the singer's life, including a
clip of her serenading one of her closest friends on her birthday.
In the video, a 14-year-old Winehouse effortlessly belted out "Happy Birthday," proving that
even at such a young age, she was full of extraordinary talent.
Even the late legendary film critic Roger Ebert said it was as if the young Winehouse
had been:
"Possessed by the spirit of an ancient R&B diva."
Kapadia was also impressed by the countless hours of footage he reviewed for the documentary.
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine he stated,
"What I learned was what a creative, intelligent, funny human being she was…I didn't know
any of that.
I don't know if anyone did."
Despite the film being a critical success, not everyone was excited to see the documentary
come to life.
The Winehouse family refused to give their approval because they believed the singer's
father was portrayed as an enabler to her drug and alcohol abuse.
“She had her family with her all the time, they accuse me and my family of not being
there, it's preposterous."
Despite their displeasure with the final edit, the film, including the scene of Winehouse
proving she was a vocal powerhouse at such a young age, will always be cherished by her
fans.
In January 2004, a journalist by the name of John Marrs conducted an interview with
Winehouse - who was relatively unknown at the time.
Her album Frank had just been released in the UK, and she wasn't expected to be a huge
breakout star, so the editor didn't even bother to publish the interview at that time.
Following her death, it was released in its entirety by the Huffington Post, and the world
learned about some other artists Winehouse was fond of in the music industry.
When the English singer was asked which of her American counterparts she enjoyed the
most, she gave a nod to Pink by saying,
"[She's] wicked because she talks her mouth off and doesn't give a s---."
P!nk unknowingly lived up to Winehouse's description of her when she gave her two cents about Winehouse's
personal issues.
In a 2008 interview with the Daily Mirror, P!nk said,
"I would like to see Amy get well.
She's great.
It's all very Britney Spears, though I've seen people recover from worse."
In the previously unpublished interview shared by HuffPost, another surprising thing that
came out was Winehouse's love of hip-hop.
When asked who her idols were while she was growing up, she mentioned that she so badly
wanted to be in the '80s female rap group Salt-N-Pepa.
She and her childhood friend, Juliette Ashby, even started their own group called Sweet-n-Sour
when Winehouse was 9.
While reliving the memory, Winehouse said,
"We had some funny songs.
We had two little boys to be our little b----es who would dance for us.
We wrote a song called 'Boys Who Needs Them?' and in the middle of the song they'd come
on and list girls names while we dissed them."
Winehouse went on to say she and Ashby performed the songs at school assemblies, complete with
a dance sequence that included a bunch of "grinding."
Oh, and in case you were wondering, in Sweet-n-Sour, Winehouse was Sour.
In 2006, Winehouse released her final studio album, called Back to Black.
The album included 12 tracks, including the song "Me and Mr. Jones."
Prior to her death, there was speculation about which mystery man Winehouse was referring
to in the song.
Many assumed she had penned the track for rapper Nasir "Nas" Jones, and some of her
words in the song actually matched up with Jones' real life.
When Winehouse belted out "Mr. Destiny, 9 and 14," she was referencing's Jones' daughter,
Destiny, and September 14th, which happens to be Winehouse and Jones' shared birth dates.
Following her death, Jones confirmed the rumor by stating that Winehouse's producer had spilled
the beans to him prior to the track's release.
In an interview with XXL magazine, Jones said,
"I don't really remember if [her producer], who was really close to her, who introduced
us, if he told me about it or not...I don't remember right now.
But, I heard a lot about it before I even heard the song."
The two had actually sparked a friendship after realizing they had more in common than
just their birthdays.
Skype sessions later turned into an in-person meeting, and the two artists were working
on a song that Winehouse never got the chance to record.
They were even planning a joint-birthday party that same year before her untimely death,
according to Uproxx.
"We got love for Amy forever, that's our sister, love her."
Not too many artists experience immediate success straight out the gate.
As for Winehouse, her 2003 debut album Frank was certified three-times platinum as of 2017,
according to BPI.
Her follow-up album, the 2006 monster hit Back to Black, avalanched her previous success
by going twelve-times platinum.
With her newfound fame came a legion of international fans who fell in love with her raspy and bluesy
voice.
But after her death, the world learned that Winehouse wasn't entirely interested in being
a star.
When the official trailer to the Amy documentary was released, fans were greeted by Winehouse's
voice ominously predicting her own downfall.
When speaking about her budding career, she said she didn't want to be, quote, "anything
other than a musician."
When asked by an interviewer how big of a star she thought she'd become, she responded,
"I don't think I'm going to be at all famous.
I don't think I could handle it."
Winehouse admitted that while she sometimes wished her music could be heard on a larger
scale, fame simply wasn't for her.
Winehouse collaborated with a host of top-notch entertainers, including Prince on the track
"Love Is a Losing Game" and mega-producer Quincy Jones on "It's My Party."
There are a host of celebrities who are difficult to work with, but apparently, Winehouse wasn't
one of them.
Six years after her death, her bassist, Dale Davis, gave an interview to MusicRadar to
talk about his time performing alongside the iconic singer.
He recognized that she was struggling with addiction, and he admitted it was hard to
perform on stage with her "for the last two or three years of her life."
Despite the turmoil caused by Winehouse's battles with her inner demons, Davis called
her:
"An amazing talent, and very easy to work with."
It's hard to stand by and watch as someone you care about deals with addiction.
While Winehouse's friends decided to give her tough love, rapper Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter
thought confronting Winehouse face-to-face was the best solution.
While speaking to Rap Radar podcast, the rapper described the first time he and Beyoncé met
the singer at the Spotted Pig restaurant in New York.
After seeing Winehouse in such bad condition, he recalled telling her to stay with them.
He also admitted he was disturbed by the lyrics of her hit song "Rehab" - even though he would
later lend his vocals to the remix.
On a separate occasion, Winehouse had finished performing at Joe's Pub in NYC, and Jay-Z
later revealed he had been "alarmed" by the way she was stuttering - and even asked her
about it.
During the 2004 interview that was published following her death, Winehouse revealed she
had trained at the prestigious Sylvia Young Theater school in London as a child.
The program had a positive effect on her life.
She proudly stated,
"People think stage school is a little star factory but the truth is kids like me learned
about being in a team situation and going out to work earlier than a lot of kids did.
I don't know anyone from drama school who's now sitting on their arse doing nothing."
She also admitted the school taught her how to discipline herself in singing, dance, and
acting.
But when it came to developing her vocal skills, Sylvia Young couldn't take all the credit.
Winehouse said,
"I could sing, but I didn't become a great singer.
I probably didn't become any good until I was about 15 and I left Sylvia Young."
Winehouse's rocky on-again-off-again relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil made for perfect
tabloid fodder.
In an interview with Bizarre, Winehouse admitted she would get physical with Fielder-Civil
when she was drinking.
She said,
"If he says one thing I don't like then I'll chin him."
Proof of their physical altercations came to light when photos of Winehouse and Fielder-Civil
covered in scratches and blood were published by the Daily Mail in August 2007.
Fielder-Civil would become her husband, but filed for divorce in January 2009.
She may have thought he was her true love - but her original crushes just so happened
to be popular characters Snoopy and Bart Simpson, as well as the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.
In her previously unpublished interview, she said,
"I wanted to be Snoopy's girlfriend and when I got older I wanted to be Bart Simpson's
girlfriend.
Then I couldn't decide whether I wanted marry Snoopy or Michael Jackson – because he was
God to me – or to just be them."
While she gave singer Pink a thumbs up for always speaking her mind, she wasn't so complimentary
to other artists in the music industry.
In HuffPost's previously unpublished interview, journalist John Marrs asked the singer what
she thought of American contemporaries.
That's when Winehouse unleashed her unfiltered opinion, saying,
"[Christina Aguilera] has her own style too, so good on her.
I don't think anyone's ever told her to put on some leather chaps and get her noonie out.
She's an amazing singer but a lot of her music I can't even hear, it's the same with [Britney
Spears'] music."
If her drug rehab and her subsequent treatments had been successful, perhaps Winehouse would've
been a mother today.
In her previously unreleased interview, she told journalist John Marrs she definitely
envisioned herself, quote, "settling down, getting married and having kids."
She was a bit iffy on just how good of a mom she would be when she stated,
"I think I'd be a good mum, well, I hope so.
I hope I won't be a s--- mum."
As for how many kids she wanted exactly, Winehouse said she wanted, quote, "loads of them, at
least five."
She planned to juggle motherhood and her music career by having a studio in her house, saying,
"[I'll be] recording downstairs in my basement and the kids come down looking for their mummy
then they'll pretend to sing into the microphone and it'll be cute."
After her death, her father made the shocking admission to Weekend Sunrise that Winehouse
and her then-fiancé Reg Traviss had been expecting a baby at some point during their
relationship, saying,
"They were going to get married.
I shouldn't tell you this but she thought she was pregnant at some stage."
Her father refused to give further details as to when the alleged pregnancy occurred.
Winehouse's life and career have been honored in multiple documentaries following her death,
including the 2018 film, Amy Winehouse – Back to Black.
In the documentary, we were able to learn even more about the "Tears Dry On Their Own"
singer's creative process during the time she recorded her sophomore album, Back to
Black.
According to the late singer's collaborator, Mark Ronson, Winehouse was a quick and efficient
musician.
Ronson admitted,
"It was probably the quickest I've worked on any record.
We did about five songs in four days."
"That first day she wrote Back to Black, all the lyrics and the melody, in two or three
hours."
It's almost hard to believe some of her songs were penned so quickly, considering they're
some of the most iconic tracks the music world has been blessed with.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Nicki Swift videos about your favorite celebs are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.