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Speaker 1: or follow the link in the episode description. Juliette Ashby
Speaker 1: and Amy Winehouse met when they were four years old
Speaker 1: at Osage Primary School in Southgate, London. Amy says they
Speaker 1: were both a bit off key. Juliette described their personalities
Speaker 1: as a bit nutty. They became fast friends and they
Speaker 1: were always in trouble. Over the next two decades, their
Speaker 1: friendship would face many challenges, or what Juliette describes as
Speaker 1: when Amy acts like a dickhead and I have to
Speaker 1: pick her up, which is more or less all of
Speaker 1: the time. In two thousand and seven, Amy Winehouse told
Speaker 1: The Guardian she'd be dead if it wasn't for Juliet easily.
Speaker 1: The years after Amy's second album, Back to Black, tested
Speaker 1: the friendship repeatedly, but Juliet knew she would always stand
Speaker 1: by her Amy, and Amy knew she could always find
Speaker 1: her way back with Juliette. On the twenty second of
Speaker 1: July twenty and eleven, Amy Winehouse called her best friend.
Speaker 1: Juliet told the twenty fifteen documentary Amy that it was
Speaker 1: a conversation she'd been waiting and hoping for.
Speaker 2: She rang me up, and I looked at the phone
Speaker 2: and I thought, oh my god, like, what's happened now,
Speaker 2: because that's the first thing that goes in my head.
Speaker 2: And she just went jewels and it was Mi Amy,
Speaker 2: completely normal, and all she kept saying was and she'd
Speaker 2: never done this before. She just kept saying sorry. It
Speaker 2: was that complete clarity over the whole situation of the
Speaker 2: nightmare of the past, however many years that we'd just
Speaker 2: gone through. Jules, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm
Speaker 2: so sorry. I'm so sorry. You know that when you're
Speaker 2: a kid in your panic, that you've done something wrong
Speaker 2: and you want to just fix it there and then
Speaker 2: that's how it was.
Speaker 1: Amy asked Juliette if they could catch up soon. Juliette said,
Speaker 1: of course they could. The next day, juliet turned on
Speaker 1: her TV to this news.
Speaker 3: Let me bring you some breaking news now coming into
Speaker 3: us from sky sources. The singer Amy Winehouse has been
Speaker 3: found dead in her North London flat. The twenty seven
Speaker 3: year old singer who found much critical acclaim has been
Speaker 3: found dead at her flat in North London.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the final installment of the Amy Winehouse story.
Speaker 1: On the last episode, we heard how a month before
Speaker 1: Amy's death, her performance at a music festival in Serbia
Speaker 1: was resoundly panned. She was intoxicated for the whole world
Speaker 1: to see. But the silver lining of what would be
Speaker 1: labeled as the worst gig of her career meant she
Speaker 1: didn't have to go on tour. It meant Amy and
Speaker 1: those who loved her had their hopes pinned on a
Speaker 1: chance for Amy to get better again. On this episode,
Speaker 1: we'll explore the final years in the life of Amy
Speaker 1: Winehouse after her closest friends were convinced she was doing
Speaker 1: better than ever, how did she die and why was
Speaker 1: she sent to do more shows when she was not
Speaker 1: only unwilling but unwell.
Speaker 4: It's an enormous pressure to walk down the street, to
Speaker 4: have no anonymity to our people thinking they know you.
Speaker 4: It's too much. There are days when it's great, but
Speaker 4: there are more days than not when it really isn't.
Speaker 4: And I think it's enormous amount for people to cook with,
Speaker 4: especially people like Amy. It's like putting somebody with a
Speaker 4: mental health problem in theevile, stressful circumstances you could possibly imagine.
Speaker 4: I'm broadcasting it to the world. Of course it's going
Speaker 4: to be it's going to be horrendous for.
Speaker 1: Plus, we'll take a closer look at the twenty seven Club.
Speaker 1: What is this unique curse that looms over the legacies
Speaker 1: of these young artists. I'm Emma Gillespie and this is
Speaker 1: extraordinary stories. After her marriage to Blake Fielder civil in
Speaker 1: May two thousand and seven, Amy Winehouse was about to
Speaker 1: have the best and the worst year of her life.
Speaker 5: Blake came back on the scene literally weeks after my
Speaker 5: mother passed away, so is Amy's grandmother. They were just
Speaker 5: so close. They were as close as mother and daughter.
Speaker 6: They had a very one pertic effect.
Speaker 5: I had an incredibly traumatic effect on all of us,
Speaker 5: but on Amy and my son Alex as well. It
Speaker 5: was devastating for them. The timing of everything was just
Speaker 5: incredible that Blake came back into her life at that
Speaker 5: moment when she was her most vulnerable.
Speaker 1: With five Grammys in her trophy, cabinet and an internationally
Speaker 1: adored album. Amy could no longer leave the house without
Speaker 1: being stalked by cameras and reporters.
Speaker 7: I think it just goes hand in hand. I think
Speaker 7: when you become as famous as she did and as
Speaker 7: good as singer, and you know what she did in
Speaker 7: her short period of time in music, I think it
Speaker 7: just comes hand in hand, and you can't once it starts.
Speaker 7: I think it's very hard for you.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's all about publicity, that's the name of
Speaker 3: the game.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but I think sometimes it did go a bit
Speaker 7: too far. You know, there are a lot of press
Speaker 7: about all the time.
Speaker 1: Following the release of Back to Black, she was faced
Speaker 1: with an intense touring schedule, one that lasted years, not months.
Speaker 1: As her physical appearance deteriorated, rumors grew louder and louder.
Speaker 1: Everyone thought she was on drugs, and everyone knew the
Speaker 1: person closest to her was a drug addict.
Speaker 8: She became really withdrawn. I think everyone knew. You know,
Speaker 8: Amy was never clean. Cart she loved a dream can,
Speaker 8: she smoked weed, but you know when she met he
Speaker 8: was an addict, and it was him who introduced her
Speaker 8: to harder drugs like heroin. I just think their relationship
Speaker 8: was kind of all consuming.
Speaker 1: It made them tabloid catnip demonized by the press. Day
Speaker 1: in day out, Amy became trapped within an inescapable fish
Speaker 1: bowl as a feeding frenzy of cameras stalked her every move.
Speaker 1: The glare of attention was beginning to overshadow Amy's accolades
Speaker 1: and her abilities as a singer songwriter. We became more
Speaker 1: quick to associate her with bad behavior than with her music.
Speaker 9: I guess from being around a pop, from being around
Speaker 9: a block, I guess people know that I don't really
Speaker 9: do what I'm told to do, although I don't really
Speaker 9: care enough about what people think of me to conform
Speaker 9: to anything.
Speaker 1: By August two thousand and seven, it had proved almost
Speaker 1: too much for Amy. She was hospitalized for an overdose
Speaker 1: of a cocktail of heroin, ecstasy, coke, ketamine and booze.
Speaker 1: The twenty three year old had her stomach pumped and
Speaker 1: was administered a shot of adrenaline at London's University College Hospital.
Speaker 1: At the time, in an article headlined the Trouble with Amy,
Speaker 1: The Guardian wrote.
Speaker 10: Her extreme weight loss over the last eighteen months coupled
Speaker 10: with the declining quality of her increasingly inebriated live performances,
Speaker 10: has prompted speculation that the singer suffers from more serious
Speaker 10: issues than alcoholism.
Speaker 1: Her label, Island Records wanted to sweep it under the rug,
Speaker 1: blaming the collapse on severe exhaustion, issuing a statement that
Speaker 1: read Amy was discharged from the hospital this afternoon and
Speaker 1: has been advised to take complete rest. Scheduled performances in
Speaker 1: Norway and Denmark this week have been canceled. Amy's dad
Speaker 1: and her manager decided to stage an intervention. Her father,
Speaker 1: Mitch Winehouse, had finally changed his tune, and he insisted
Speaker 1: it was time for Amy to go to rehab to
Speaker 1: get sober have some time away from Blake. Everyone in
Speaker 1: Amy's life felt she couldn't get better with Blake by
Speaker 1: her side, but as stubborn as ever, Amy kept on
Speaker 1: fighting for her marriage.
Speaker 9: You know, I love that boy with dirty hair who
Speaker 9: rides a motorbike. And even if, even if he doesn't
Speaker 9: love me back, are still lying the road for him,
Speaker 9: for love him. You know what I mean, very all
Speaker 9: or nothing. I like that, you know, I like the
Speaker 9: mentality at.
Speaker 1: A Hampshire resort After Amy's health scare, her nearest and
Speaker 1: dearest tried to convince Amy it was time to get
Speaker 1: clean for good, but within hours of their arrival, dozens
Speaker 1: of the other hotel rooms were all booked up by
Speaker 1: tabloid journalists and paparazzi. Every conversation the winehouses were having
Speaker 1: was recorded on tape, Every moment caught on camera. Even
Speaker 1: in her lowest moment, Amy couldn't find a reprieve. The
Speaker 1: Today Shows, La based Hollywood correspondent Dean McCarthy says, sadly,
Speaker 1: for any youngster, it's a familiar trope.
Speaker 11: I think it is a sad reality that that is
Speaker 11: the life that they kind of fall into. And I
Speaker 11: think it's because of the pressures that they're under when
Speaker 11: they are so young and they're given this gift and
Speaker 11: everyone wants to take advantage of them, and they're so
Speaker 11: exposed and exploited.
Speaker 1: And by two thousand and seven, that exploitation was far
Speaker 1: from over. For Amy. It wasn't just coming from the
Speaker 1: tabloids either. It seemed the two men in her life,
Speaker 1: Amy's father, Mitch and her husband Blake, always wanted something
Speaker 1: from her or her fame, and it seemed both were
Speaker 1: set on turning Amy against the other. Amy accused her father,
Speaker 1: a singer himself, of using her to make money and
Speaker 1: to try and get famous after he began pursuing record
Speaker 1: deals for himself and talking to media outlets about concerns
Speaker 1: for Amy's health in paid interviews.
Speaker 5: My big experience that she would die and we will
Speaker 5: be talking about a very slow and painful death, gasping forever.
Speaker 6: A start warning from the father of the most talented
Speaker 6: performer of her generation. Mitch Winehouse is adamant his daughter
Speaker 6: is getting better and it's urging dolls around her to
Speaker 6: give Amy the chance to make a recovery.
Speaker 5: She won't die of a drug overdose. It won't be
Speaker 5: that quick.
Speaker 1: Mitch was adamant. He was just trying to keep his
Speaker 1: little girl safe.
Speaker 5: And as her father, how did that make you feel
Speaker 5: when you thought this guy that she's in love with
Speaker 5: hooked up to is driving in to this kind of thing.
Speaker 5: I was sickened, and I did everything in my power
Speaker 5: to stop the relationship. But again, what can you do? Loved,
Speaker 5: she really loved Blake. Did you ever confront him, oh
Speaker 5: frequently and his family?
Speaker 4: What would you say?
Speaker 5: Leave my daughter alone, leave us alone. You're killing my daughter,
Speaker 5: he would say, well, I'm not killing her. He would
Speaker 5: admit to nothing, and his family were in denial, which
Speaker 5: made it even more difficult because we had them to
Speaker 5: deal with as well.
Speaker 1: After the collapse and intervention, Amy agreed to go to rehab,
Speaker 1: but only if she could get clean with Blake. All
Speaker 1: the health experts warned against it. They said it would
Speaker 1: never work, but Amy insisted. So Amy and Blake did
Speaker 1: go to rehab together for about forty eight hours. You
Speaker 1: might remember paparazzi photos of them both looking thin, underslept,
Speaker 1: wide eyed, and smeared with blood. They were taken after
Speaker 1: they checked out of the facility. After Amy and Blake's
Speaker 1: post rehab drug binge at a London hotel suite, it.
Speaker 8: Just turned really destructive. And that was when they were
Speaker 8: having the public fights. We were seeing her bleeding in
Speaker 8: the street and all those horrible pat pics that were
Speaker 8: really distressing to see. I think that was when it
Speaker 8: was almost like the point of no return.
Speaker 1: Concern for Amy's well being was at an all time high.
Speaker 1: Her marriage to Blake, however, passionate, was on tender hooks,
Speaker 1: especially after room as Blake was selling videos of aiming
Speaker 1: taking drugs to the British tabloids.
Speaker 12: More trouble for Amy Winehouse. This grainy video footage was
Speaker 12: obtained by the British newspaper The Sun. It shows Winehouse
Speaker 12: walking around what looks like her home. She sits down,
Speaker 12: seemingly aware a camera is watching to.
Speaker 4: See who I am.
Speaker 12: This is just the latest in a string of erratic
Speaker 12: behavior for Winehouse, who's twenty four. Her lackluster concert performances
Speaker 12: and reports of alleged drug abuse have fed the British
Speaker 12: tabloids for months. Her publicist declined comment on the video.
Speaker 1: Psychologist doctor Peter Hughes says, while most of us will
Speaker 1: never understand how Blake could have done that to his
Speaker 1: own wife, we have to remember that there were stronger
Speaker 1: forces pulling him to do so.
Speaker 4: That's what addiction does. People don't see the world. An
Speaker 4: addict doesn't see the world in the way that the
Speaker 4: rest of us do, and that's part of the frustration
Speaker 4: of dealing with it, and part of trying to get
Speaker 4: into the mindset of an addict. Is a very complex
Speaker 4: thing to do if you're clean.
Speaker 1: Then, in November two thousand and seven, a brush with
Speaker 1: the law that might actually have saved Amy's life.
Speaker 13: Amy Winehouse's troubles are finally hitting home. The Star's London
Speaker 13: house was raided by police on Thursday. Officers were standing
Speaker 13: guard outside the pad in Camden from five pm and
Speaker 13: were there for three hours while a team was sent
Speaker 13: inside a rifle through her belongings. The singer and her husband, Blakefield,
Speaker 13: a civil, weren't there at the time. A spokesman for
Speaker 13: the beehive loving Star said Amy was fine, but stressed
Speaker 13: that she had nothing to do with it and that
Speaker 13: it didn't involve drugs. The investigation also saw the arrests
Speaker 13: of four men elsewhere in London who were all between
Speaker 13: the ages of nineteen and twenty five. Harbi blake is
Speaker 13: now thought to be one of them after The Mirror
Speaker 13: printed a picture of him in handcuffs.
Speaker 1: Blakefield, the civil, was charged with grievous bodily harm with
Speaker 1: intent and perverting the course of justice after he bashed
Speaker 1: a pub landlord and tried to cover it up. In
Speaker 1: June two thousand and eight. He pled guilty to a
Speaker 1: lesser charge of grievous bodily harm and the twenty six
Speaker 1: year old was sentenced to two years behind bars two
Speaker 1: years without his Amy.
Speaker 14: Singer Amy Weinhaus's husband, Blake Fielder Civil, will not be
Speaker 14: getting out of jail anytime soon. Monday, field Or Civil
Speaker 14: was sets to twenty seven months for assault and obstructing justice.
Speaker 14: Fielder Civil has already spent almost nine months in jail
Speaker 14: after being arrested for biating up a pub manager and
Speaker 14: then offering him hush money to keep quiet about the incident.
Speaker 1: It was a chance for Amy to get clean for
Speaker 1: the first time in years without Blake's influence. Mitch decided
Speaker 1: to take her to Saint Lucia, Amy's favorite place in
Speaker 1: the world, so she could unwind and relax away from
Speaker 1: the glare of the London press. But Mitch brought his
Speaker 1: own camera crew with him. He was filming a reality
Speaker 1: show about what life was like as Amy's dad. Here's
Speaker 1: what Amy's producer Salam Remi had to say about it
Speaker 1: in the twenty fifty docco Amy.
Speaker 15: She's like, yo, why is he bringing another camera call
Speaker 15: to Saint Lucia, Dad, do you want money?
Speaker 10: I'll give him money.
Speaker 15: Why are you doing your life story which is really
Speaker 15: my life story? She just felt like, you know, my
Speaker 15: dad's doing a lot of stuff for money or.
Speaker 16: Alarm, like my dad got to make your mug at me,
Speaker 16: not nice to me on Cameron.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, that's got ying to you about those
Speaker 5: two people who want it, allows you photograph and you've
Speaker 5: got to make them feel bad about it.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't matter to feel bad about it, Dad.
Speaker 8: They've got the fight that they wanted, but I don't.
Speaker 11: Think they give a fuck about it.
Speaker 1: To the relief of Amy's friends and family, it was
Speaker 1: on that same holiday that she appeared to be moving
Speaker 1: on from Blake. He was still in prison when he
Speaker 1: saw photos of Amy and tabloid papers kissing another man
Speaker 1: in the sea at Saint Lucia. Amy and Blake filed
Speaker 1: for divorce soon after.
Speaker 17: Bluckly, I just didn't have a very opinion of myself
Speaker 17: after the treatment I've had for the past two years
Speaker 17: with my wife. I kind of just hoped the wind
Speaker 17: knocked out myself. But I just thought, fat this. You know,
Speaker 17: I'm a big man, I'm an handsome fucking guy. I
Speaker 17: ain't I never win. I'm going through the gym a lot.
Speaker 17: I dress well to what the fuck am I doing?
Speaker 17: Waste of my time of her?
Speaker 1: By the end of two thousand and eight, Blake was
Speaker 1: out of Amy's life for good and she was no
Speaker 1: longer touring. This meant she'd be able to get better,
Speaker 1: to focus on staying clean and writing more music.
Speaker 5: Right, there's five gigs which contractually we are obliged to do.
Speaker 5: There's a couple this weekend. But Amy feels and the
Speaker 5: management field and the record company for and I feel
Speaker 5: that that is enough of the live performing for the
Speaker 5: time being.
Speaker 1: Five more gigs, five more so called contractually obliged gigs.
Speaker 1: Amy's friends were heartbroken. They tried to hide her passport,
Speaker 1: and Amy didn't want to bar of it either. She'd
Speaker 1: been trying to sabotage the tour, drinking to excess night
Speaker 1: after night in the hopes it would mean she could
Speaker 1: miss it. Passed out on her sofa in her Campden
Speaker 1: flat on a June twenty and eleven morning, Amy was
Speaker 1: put in a car and taken to an airport, where
Speaker 1: she eventually woke up. From there, she was loaded onto
Speaker 1: a private jet. She arrived in Belgrade, Serbia, barefoot and
Speaker 1: against her will after the disastrous Serbia Festival performance. Any
Speaker 1: other gigs she was contractually obliged to or otherwise were axed,
Speaker 1: but it seemed to be the turning point Amy needed.
Speaker 1: She expressed her excitement about now being able to attend
Speaker 1: Nick Shamansky's wedding. She'd organized to catch up with her
Speaker 1: best girlfriends, as we heard from Juliet Ashby, but none
Speaker 1: of it would come to fruition. By mid twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: Amy Winehouse had been in the public eye for seven years.
Speaker 1: In that time, she transformed from a hopeful singer with
Speaker 1: buckets of talent to a haunted addict seemingly determined to
Speaker 1: self destruct.
Speaker 18: Lady Gentleen, thank you Mauch for your time. I'd just
Speaker 18: like to give a short statement about today's events. Please
Speaker 18: recalled by the London Ambulance Service to house in Camden Square,
Speaker 18: Northwest one shortly before sixteen's or five hours today one
Speaker 18: reports of a women found de ceased. On arrival, officers
Speaker 18: found the body of a twenty seven year old female
Speaker 18: who's pronounced dead at the scene. Next to kin have
Speaker 18: been informed and I can confirm that they deceased is
Speaker 18: Amy Winehouse.
Speaker 1: On the twenty third of July twenty eleven, after a
Speaker 1: night binge drinking vodka in her London flat, watching YouTube
Speaker 1: videos in bed. Amy Winehouse's body gave up.
Speaker 18: It's a sad time for friends and family, particularly in
Speaker 18: someone a case of Amy Winehouse, very well known nationally
Speaker 18: and internationally by sympathy extends not just her immediate family,
Speaker 18: particularly to thousands and millions of fans across the world.
Speaker 18: I would urge respect on behalf of the media and
Speaker 18: on people who might be wishering to want you to
Speaker 18: wish well to the family, to urge some respect for
Speaker 18: some privacy. You'll understand that I cannot and will not
Speaker 18: take questions at this time. I thank you for your time.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Do you remember where you were on the night Amy
Speaker 1: Whitehouse passed away? Right A Polly Taylor does. She remembers
Speaker 1: the exact moment she heard the news.
Speaker 8: She was always so open about her other issues as well,
Speaker 8: you know, eating disorders and things like that. It's so
Speaker 8: hard to say. It was like it was a shock,
Speaker 8: and then it wasn't like I actually remember hearing the news.
Speaker 8: I was at a friend's birthday party and we were
Speaker 8: at her house, and we were all just drinking, and
Speaker 8: we probably were listening to Amy Winehouse and someone said
Speaker 8: looked at their phone and suddenly went Oh my god,
Speaker 8: Amy Whinehouse is dead. And we all just sat down,
Speaker 8: like everyone just stopped what they were doing, sat down
Speaker 8: in absolute shock, and we just couldn't continue the birthday celebrations.
Speaker 8: We were just like bereft all of us. I loved her,
Speaker 8: and I just think because of that time in my
Speaker 8: life where I'm not claiming to know her or be
Speaker 8: her friend, but she was just I was just part
Speaker 8: of that same world that she was. And so of
Speaker 8: all the celebrity deaths I've experienced, that one just hit
Speaker 8: in a different way. For sure.
Speaker 19: To her fans, she was a music icon, but to
Speaker 19: Amy Winehouse's dad, Mitch, she was just his little girl.
Speaker 5: With deva slightly the last week. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 20: Thank you very much.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I'll hard to do you against too.
Speaker 19: Amy's funeral will be Hell today and it's expected to
Speaker 19: be private, attended by close family and friends.
Speaker 1: Dean McCarthy says it was a tragedy, but not necessarily
Speaker 1: one that had shocked him.
Speaker 11: She had had a very tumultuous life. She had been
Speaker 11: in and out of rehab as we know, she'd had
Speaker 11: a very interesting and aggressive, I think relationship, and she
Speaker 11: really had been struggling and gone through quite a dark
Speaker 11: space for a very long time. And so when she
Speaker 11: passed away, as devastating as it was, and people were
Speaker 11: so upset because she was so talented. That voice was
Speaker 11: like a gift from God or something, you know what
Speaker 11: I mean, Like it was a one in a billion voice.
Speaker 11: She had this unbelievable talent and she was so incredibly
Speaker 11: adored around the world. But when she passed away, I
Speaker 11: would say it wasn't a huge surprise because of the
Speaker 11: really rough, unhealthy life style that she had lived.
Speaker 1: The outpouring from fans swiftly followed. Amy's music began to
Speaker 1: rise through the charts once again, and tributes flowed in
Speaker 1: from around the world. The sentiment of Amy's bereft fans
Speaker 1: is one a Lenni Papa Visiliu from the Jewish Museum
Speaker 1: of Australia saw firsthand during their time hosting an exhibition
Speaker 1: honoring Amy's life.
Speaker 20: We've had such a warm response and such an emotional
Speaker 20: response from visitors. We had a whole section dedicated to
Speaker 20: allowing people to give their thoughts and feedback on Amy
Speaker 20: and it was actually so moving and you know, quite
Speaker 20: heartbreaking our times to see how people connected to her
Speaker 20: and to her music, and just how sad people were
Speaker 20: with her passing, people writing notes such as, you know
Speaker 20: what her music meant to them, or where they sought
Speaker 20: her in concert, or how they felt when she passed away.
Speaker 1: When Amy died, she was twenty seven years old. It
Speaker 1: gained her admission to an ominous and infamous club of
Speaker 1: young artists who came before her. Hollywood correspondent Dean McCarthy explains, so,
Speaker 1: the twenty.
Speaker 11: Seven Club is a phenomenon that people believe musicians, actors,
Speaker 11: athletes die at the age of twenty seven. Now here's
Speaker 11: where it started, right, So between nineteen sixty nine and
Speaker 11: nineteen seventy one, four hugely famous people all died all
Speaker 11: the age of twenty seven. So we're talking Brian Jones,
Speaker 11: Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. And what's really
Speaker 11: quite difficult to imagine that they actually died at twenty seven,
Speaker 11: because they still are some of the most famous names
Speaker 11: in the world. It's like, wow, there were only twenty
Speaker 11: seven genas Choppam was twenty seven when she died. They
Speaker 11: all died at the age of twenty seven, and the
Speaker 11: deaths are usually surrounded by overdosing of drugs. They're really
Speaker 11: quite a dark way to die.
Speaker 1: Dean says. Knowledge in pop culture around the elusive twenty
Speaker 1: seven club was completely reinvigorated after the death of a
Speaker 1: nineties icon, the King of Grunge.
Speaker 11: In nineteen ninety four. When Kurt Cobain died at the
Speaker 11: age of twenty seven, it was his mother that gave
Speaker 11: a very famous quote in an interviewce what she said.
Speaker 11: She said, now he's gone and he's joined that stupid club.
Speaker 11: I told him not to join that stupid club. Kurt
Speaker 11: Cobain's mother said that in an interview after his death.
Speaker 11: That got everyone looking it up, asking around as speaking
Speaker 11: to everyone they possibly could, what is this club? And
Speaker 11: it brings us back to this Hollywood club twenty seven.
Speaker 11: So he passed away, as you know, and then of
Speaker 11: course it was reinspired again when Amy Einhouse in twenty
Speaker 11: eleven died at the age of twenty seven as well.
Speaker 1: So what do they all have in common? Was there
Speaker 1: anything in this idea of the twenty seven club or
Speaker 1: is it just a tragic coincidence.
Speaker 11: In the UK, they did a study because they thought,
Speaker 11: why is it musicians, these big rock stars dying at
Speaker 11: the age of twenty seven, So why don't we do
Speaker 11: an actual investigation into why could it possibly be that age?
Speaker 11: And the things they considered were things like, okay, touring,
Speaker 11: the energy and effort it takes on your body to
Speaker 11: tour to seeing Obviously a lot of them had a
Speaker 11: life and unhealthy life around drugs, and is that a
Speaker 11: common thing And when they really pieced all together into
Speaker 11: this big investigation, is it the average age? Is that
Speaker 11: what it's going to be because a musician of the typical,
Speaker 11: average lifestyle, the typical, average, healthy kind of space that
Speaker 11: they live in, and they actually did not find it
Speaker 11: to be that.
Speaker 1: Psychologist doctor Peter Hughes says, sure, the science around the
Speaker 1: notion of the twenty seven Club may be somewhat loose,
Speaker 1: but there are lessons within its alumni.
Speaker 4: What it points to really is you have a lot
Speaker 4: of very young, extraordinarily gift people, perhaps also a degree narcissistic,
Speaker 4: who have absorbed the celebrity and find themselves, you know,
Speaker 4: maybe psychologically frail, maybe psychologically vulnerable, find themselves in the
Speaker 4: eye of the storm. And there's expectations put on rock stars.
Speaker 4: There's expectations put on people in rock and roll, and
Speaker 4: the expectation is that there risk takers. The expectation is
Speaker 4: that they push the boundaries.
Speaker 1: Every generation has their own twenty seven Club mascot, be
Speaker 1: that Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, or for me,
Speaker 1: Amy Winehouse. But no matter when they were in their prime,
Speaker 1: they were all surrounded by temptation and surrounded by people
Speaker 1: telling them what they wanted to hear and not necessarily
Speaker 1: what they needed to hear.
Speaker 11: Imagine being twenty seven and you have worth millions and
Speaker 11: millions of dollars, you're a huge superstar, You're traveling the world.
Speaker 11: I think a lot of them turn to that unhealthy
Speaker 11: lifestyle to get them through such an overwhelming situation.
Speaker 4: I think it was William Baker said that the road
Speaker 4: to excess leads to the Palace of wisdom. And you've
Speaker 4: got this thing with extraordinarily creative people who both believe
Speaker 4: that they've got to constantly pushing the boundaries creatively. That
Speaker 4: leads them to push the boundaries in all sorts of
Speaker 4: other ways because they are creative risk takers, and that
Speaker 4: makes them risk takers and other areas of their life
Speaker 4: and then they have the public eye. Nobody wants a
Speaker 4: rock star who sits at home, you know, having a
Speaker 4: cup of tea with his or her slippers on at night.
Speaker 4: That's not a story, right.
Speaker 1: What binds those in the twenty seven club is impressive talent,
Speaker 1: but also fragility, vulnerability, the kind we saw in Amy's
Speaker 1: codependent relationship with Blake Peter Hughes again.
Speaker 4: You know, if you're Amy Wyanhaerson, you gave the example
Speaker 4: of Blake. He was feeding off for too. Everybody's feeding
Speaker 4: off because they want money. They want to have a
Speaker 4: little bit a celebrity, you know, rub off on them.
Speaker 4: They want the access that these people can give them.
Speaker 4: Nobody wants conflict. Nobody wants to say, actually, you need
Speaker 4: to stop this. And if you if one person did
Speaker 4: say that, they'd get kicked out of the inner circle.
Speaker 4: There'll be plenty of other people saying, no, you. You
Speaker 4: don't listen to him or don't listen to her. You
Speaker 4: just carry on as you're doing. You're just fabulous. You're
Speaker 4: doing brilliant. And when you're young, famous, you haven't got
Speaker 4: the psychological tools to deal with fame. You're in a
Speaker 4: profession where risk taking, an excess is expected of you.
Speaker 4: Where drugs and sex are copious and always available, any
Speaker 4: pleasure you want to sample is yours. That's an immense
Speaker 4: amount of temptation, you know, for people who who are
Speaker 4: still extraordinarily young.
Speaker 1: Whether or not you find the idea of the twenty
Speaker 1: seven Club morbid, fascinating, truth or fallacy, Dan McCarthy says
Speaker 1: it may bring some comfort to the fans, the friends
Speaker 1: and the families of these megastars.
Speaker 11: I think it does actually save them some piece and
Speaker 11: some comfort because they and they kind of like they
Speaker 11: can blame it on that, you know, like, oh, the
Speaker 11: reason he's passed away twenty something is because he's joining
Speaker 11: the most famous club in the world in Hollywood where
Speaker 11: all the lead jin's die at twenty seven. He must
Speaker 11: be a legend. That's why he passed away. For Amy,
Speaker 11: this was her path. This was always going to be
Speaker 11: where it would end for her because she is such
Speaker 11: an extraordinary legend, a phenomenon, she would have to die
Speaker 11: at twenty seven. I think it does give them some
Speaker 11: piece for sure, because they look for peace because it
Speaker 11: is such a tragedy. It is such a tragedy that
Speaker 11: someone so talented with such a gift would pass away
Speaker 11: so young, where we weren't able to enjoy them for decades,
Speaker 11: you know. And I think that that is where they
Speaker 11: find the comfort in the fact that they live on
Speaker 11: as a legend in the twenty seven Club.
Speaker 1: Doctor Peter Hughes says it's important to be wary of
Speaker 1: glamorizing the twenty seven Club, though, to remember the strength
Speaker 1: it takes for an addict to say no, to try
Speaker 1: and remove themselves from the public eye.
Speaker 4: Staying over your slippers with a couple of actually takes
Speaker 4: courage because people underestimate that, and everybody assumes. And again
Speaker 4: I can just draw on my experience of working with
Speaker 4: people in the public eye. It looks great when it's
Speaker 4: on the red carpet, and it looks great when the
Speaker 4: cameras are rolling, But when the door shuts and nobody's looking,
Speaker 4: they're just people like everybody else, often with bigger problems,
Speaker 4: greater anxieties, fewer places to turn, fewer honest friends.
Speaker 1: It sounds like an incredibly isolating existence, and we can
Speaker 1: only imagine the loneliness Amy may have felt in her
Speaker 1: darkest moments. Over a decade on, we've had more than
Speaker 1: enough time to reflect on Amy's life, her legacy, and
Speaker 1: her struggles. Given what we understand today about mental health, addiction,
Speaker 1: the pressures of fame. Who's to say if we would
Speaker 1: have treated her differently or with more kindness. For those
Speaker 1: who loved Amy, it was important to show the world
Speaker 1: who she really was away from the flash of the
Speaker 1: paparazzi frenzy. And it's why her brother Alex curated an
Speaker 1: exhibition all about Amy's life. Here's senior curator from the
Speaker 1: Australian Jewish Museum, Eleni Papa Vasiliu.
Speaker 20: Again, the exhibition should actually shed a really beautiful, warm
Speaker 20: and affectionate light to Amy and her upbringing, her early
Speaker 20: years and her family life. There were some really beautiful
Speaker 20: written captions from Alex that were really warm and affectionate
Speaker 20: and revealing about Amy, and I think that they just
Speaker 20: put her whole persona to a different light and making
Speaker 20: the exhibition really unique. It was a really beautiful and
Speaker 20: expansive show, as I say, and that aimed to portray
Speaker 20: Amy in a different light I suppose to the to
Speaker 20: the popular depiction of her later years and just remind
Speaker 20: audiences of the you know, the young, ambitious very talented
Speaker 20: young person that she was. I think with every story,
Speaker 20: particularly those of you know, famous people that are so
Speaker 20: so much in the spotlight, and her story specifically, you're
Speaker 20: not under the conditions that she that she died in.
Speaker 20: Was really important to be able to balance that narrative
Speaker 20: and give a full perspective of their life and not
Speaker 20: just one particular angle that may be perhaps the most
Speaker 20: sensational one.
Speaker 8: I think Amy's legacy and why she is still so
Speaker 8: influential over a decade after she died, probably just boils
Speaker 8: down to one thing, and that was her authenticity. She
Speaker 8: wasn't with us very long, but she was entirely authentic
Speaker 8: in every single moment that she was. She'll be remembered for,
Speaker 8: you know, her eyeliner, her beehive, her raw, honest vocals,
Speaker 8: and just the heartbreaking truth that was always present in
Speaker 8: her music.
Speaker 1: And as Polly Taylor described, of course, it's that legacy
Speaker 1: of authenticity that lives on through the music of Amy.
Speaker 20: The exhibition had scattered around beautiful quotes from Amy's audition
Speaker 20: for the Sylvia Young Theater School in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 20: and in this she wrote, I want to be remembered
Speaker 20: for being an actress, a singer for sellout concerts and
Speaker 20: cell out West End and Broadway shows, for being just me.
Speaker 8: That's the most special thing about her is that she
Speaker 8: was so real, so raw, like every every lyric, every
Speaker 8: song was a story that she was telling you about
Speaker 8: her life, her little friend.
Speaker 9: How has it been?
Speaker 4: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 16: Him wonderful? You got a friend. It's old change.
Speaker 20: In a land.
Speaker 16: Ever, how fat we steed?
Speaker 1: He was?
Speaker 16: Something's a colder, not any strange and wonderful. H He's
Speaker 16: still friends. We still thank you for listening to this
Speaker 16: season of Extraordinary Stories, the Amy Winehouse Story.
Speaker 1: It was written and produced by me and the Gillespie
Speaker 1: with TA usage and Caliborg. Audio production is by Madeline Joannu.
Speaker 17: Thank you.
Speaker 1: The next episode of Extraordinary Stories will be released next week.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to wait, you can listen right
Speaker 1: now by following the link in the episode description or
Speaker 1: by heading to mammamea dot com dot a U forward
Speaker 1: slash M.
Speaker 10: Plus Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land.
Speaker 10: We have recorded this podcast on the Gatagoul people of
Speaker 10: the Eora Nation.
Speaker 1: We pay our respects to their elders past and present
Speaker 1: and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torus train
Speaker 1: ear under cultures,