Amy Winehouse’s ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, is opening up about her tragic death nearly 15 years later.
“As I’ve always said, I’ve never shirked from any responsibility. If I’ve done something, I’ll put my hand up to it,” Fielder, 43, said on the Tuesday, March 17, episode of the “We Need to Talk” podcast. “I’m OK — I’m not OK — but I’ve made my peace with [the fact that] I had a part to play.”
He continued, “Aside from everyone else [who] also had a role, 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. Even though the drinking had started to hurt her, she carried on.”
Winehouse, who was married to Fielder from 2007 to 2009, died from accidental alcohol poisoning in July 2011. She was 27.
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“Do people think I forced Amy to do drugs? That’s just not what happened,” Fielder further asserted on Tuesday’s podcast episode. “In some of Amy’s worst age of addiction was when I was remanded to jail for a pub fight, trying to stick up for my pals. Amy’s addiction, at that point, had been her and I together. So, it was me more in control of how much we were getting.”
According to Fielder, he would facilitate the amount of drugs that he and the “Valerie” singer would use.
“I’d [be] saying, ‘We don’t need more than that. That’s enough,’” he recalled. “When I was in jail, Amy’s dealer was still very much a daily presence in Amy’s life, and I knew that. … I’m not shirking responsibility, but the idea of daily facilitating? No, I wasn’t the dealer.”
Fielder filed for divorce from Winehouse in 2009 after he completed a “real successful stint in rehab.” Fielder eventually relapsed after getting in contact with another patient from the treatment facility. Winehouse offered to help her ex get sober again.
“We didn’t see ourselves as ‘we’re raging addicts,’ we were just, [like], ‘Amy’s got to do this today [and] we need to take half-hour before she can do that, so we can get normal,’” Fielder said. “Obviously, on the withdrawal, you’re feeling a million miles from normal.”
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Fielder and Winehouse’s relationship continued on and off leading up to her death.
“The week Amy passed, I was in jail, unfortunately,” he said of his 32-month prison sentence after being convicted on burglary and possession of an imitation firearm charges in June 2011. “We were still very much talking about the possibility of reconciling again. The definitive moment I realized that wasn’t going to happen was when I got told that she passed away.”
Fielder and Winehouse often exchanged phone calls and letters while he was incarcerated until she suddenly stopped responding.
“When I tried [to call her back], some prison officers came to my door and told me what happened,” Fielder noted. “I was in my cell, [and the guards] took me down to an office, showed me a news headline ‘cause I said, ‘It’ll be a hoax.’ Just straight away, said, ‘Oh, it’s not true. Don’t worry.’”
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According to Fielder, hearing confirmation of Winehouse’s death from multiple news outlets felt like his “worst nightmare.”
“My cellmate at the time was a really solid guy. He’d seen it on the news, and gave me a hug,” Fielder recalled. “I burst into tears, he started crying too. It’s strange: I got held up, as in supported, by somebody I’d known for a matter of weeks. That was the only comfort I had at that moment for losing a massive, huge part of my life. A big part of my heart [and] somebody I was not going to see again or hear again or anything again. It was too much.”
Fielder has since moved on.
“I have a life now. I’m in love, happy, however, I still have no qualms about saying that [Amy and I] would still be in each other’s lives now. I would have met her today for a drink or a coffee, whatever,” he mused. “The divorce wasn’t the end, the arguments weren’t the end … none of that was strong enough to pull us apart. It was only her and I saying, ‘Nobody understands this but us.’”
