Amy Winehouse died in 2011 at the age of 27 from accidental alcohol poisoning. The British singer struggled with addiction and mental health issues throughout her life, which ultimately contributed to her untimely death.
The “Rehab” singer rose to fame in her early 20s with her best-selling album Back to Black, but she faced significant challenges with drug and alcohol addiction, as well as long-term bulimia.
Throughout her career, Winehouse struggled to overcome these addictions, and those close to her noted that her life in the spotlight exacerbated her difficulties, making her battles even more challenging.
“Amy was a girl in her 20s suffering from addiction, and everybody was a part of it. Everybody was watching it. When you go to rehab, you have to be the strongest you’ve ever been in your life, when you are the weakest you’ve ever been in your life.
And she had to go through that in front of people,” Winehouse’s best friend Tyler James told The Times in 2021.
After several trips to rehab and a few near-death experiences, Amy Winehouse was clean from hard drugs in the final years of her life. Although she was making progress in her recovery from alcoholism, a tragic relapse ultimately led to her death.
Since her passing, Winehouse’s parents have worked to honor her legacy by participating in documentaries about her life and establishing a foundation in her name, aimed at helping others struggling with addiction and mental health issues.
“We always wanted the world to know the real Amy, where she came from and what made her tick,” Winehouse’s father, Mitch Winehouse, told.
“She was a loyal, generous friend. She’d help anybody … Just a wonderful human being who saw the best in everybody.”
Death Cause
Amy Winehouse’s official cause of death was ruled as “alcohol toxicity.” At the time of her passing, her blood alcohol level was more than five times over the legal limit. Coroner Suzanne Greenaway classified the death as “death by misadventure,” describing it as an “unintended consequence” of excessive drinking.
Following the court’s revelation of the cause of death, Winehouse’s parents, Mitch and Janis, released a statement mourning their daughter’s tragic passing.
“It is some relief to finally find out what happened to Amy. We understand there was alcohol in her system when she passed away; it is likely a build up of alcohol in her system over a number of days. The court heard that Amy was battling hard to conquer her problems with alcohol and it is a source of great pain to us that she could not win in time,” her parents said.
Before her death, Amy Winehouse had a long history of struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, but she eventually managed to get clean from heroin and crack cocaine.
Her father noted that in the time leading up to her passing, she seemed to be the “happiest she had been for years” and had recently gone three weeks without alcohol.
This period of sobriety gave her family hope for her continued recovery, making her sudden relapse all the more tragic.
“I want people to please, please recognize how hard she had worked to come off drugs and just how close she was to [giving up alcohol] for good, how close she was to being healthy,” Winehouse’s best friend James told.
