We Need To Talk with Paul C. Brunson - Amy Winehouse & Me: Blake Fielder Finally Tells His Story

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder were at the centre of one of the most talked about relationships in modern music history. In this rare conversation, Blake speaks openly about their relationship, addiction, fame, blame, and the headlines that followed them both. He reflects on meeting Amy in Camden, the intensity of their connection, and what their relationship was really like away from public view. Blake also revisits the chaos of the 2000s tabloid press, the pressure of sudden fame, and how Back to Black captured the pain of their breakup in real time. Blake speaks candidly about addiction, the long-standing accusations that have followed him for years, and the darkest chapters of his life, including learning of Amy’s death while he was in prison. He also confronts one of the biggest questions that still surrounds her death: who was responsible? Blake Fielder, We Need To Talk. This conversation includes discussion of suicide, addiction, self harm and eating disorders. Please watch with care. If you need support, we’ve included helpful resources below: Samaritans: https://linkly.link/2dx7Z CALM: https://linkly.link/2dx8H MIND:  https://linkly.link/2dx8b Beat Eating Disorders https://linkly.link/2dx8y (00:00) Intro (01:59) Why Does Blake Want to Speak Now? (03:57) Blake Describes His Upbringing (05:26) Blake’s Life in London as a Teenager (06:04) How Blake Ended Up Working On Music Videos (07:16) What Was Blake’s Relationship With Drugs and Alcohol in His Teens? (13:16) Blake’s Self-Esteem as a Teenager (15:28) When Did Blake’s Drug Use Change From Casual to Addiction? (17:49) Blake Addresses Whether He Was an Addict Before Meeting Amy Winehouse (20:30) Blake Talks About His Mental Health Challenges as a Child (24:57) How Blake Met Amy Winehouse (40:09) Why Blake and Amy Winehouse Initially Broke Up (41:37) The Huge Popularity of ‘Back to Black’ (51:00) Blake’s Thoughts on the ‘AMY’ Documentary (55:12) How Blake and Amy Rekindled Their Relationship (57:07) Paul Shows Blake a Photo From His Wedding Day With Amy (01:02:07) The British Media in the Early Noughties (01:09:33) Blake’s Relationship With Amy’s Father Mitch (01:14:31) Amy’s Addiction While Blake Was Incarcerated (01:21:40) Did Blake and Amy Talk About Getting Clean? (01:23:15) Blake and Amy’s Interactions With Big Stars (01:27:11) Shopify Ad (01:28:13) How Did Blake and Amy Finally Separate? (01:35:53) Blake’s Final Time Seeing Amy (01:39:58) How Blake Found Out About Amy’s Passing (01:51:21) When Blake First Realised Amy Suffered From Bulimia (01:54:38) Statistics Around Drug Abuse and Bulimia (02:00:28) Blake’s Thoughts on the ‘27 Club’ (02:04:25) What Does Blake Think Amy’s Legacy Will Be? (02:07:03) What Would Blake Say To Amy Today? (02:11:32) Most Memorable Conversation (02:13:39) Paul’s Takeaways Follow me here: https://www.instagram.com/needtotalk  https://www.tiktok.com/@weneedtotalkpod Sponsored by: Shopify: www.shopify.co.uk/needtotalk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're chasing data down instead of seeing it in one place, you need the Intuit ERP. Intuit Enterprise Suite. All your data in one place with built-in AI for real-time insights. Learn more at intuit.com slash ERP. 15 years after Amy Winehouse, the fingers still pointed at you. I need to take control of my own narratives. I have not necessarily been accurately represented. Drugs made me feel confident.

I understand as a young boy, there was an incident that happened. Yeah, I didn't expect you to ask that. I've only just started admitting this to myself. But take me to that evening when you met Amy. When she told me that she was a musician, I was like, oh. But then she said, no, not, like I'm actually good. So back to black, it was about you.

Were there any lyrics that surprised you? There's a few perhaps that were a little bit close to the bone. Would have died for each other. And it was more too intense, too fast. So you feel as if you and you and Amy became addicts together. Not in her fact we did. I remember her father visited me in jail,

and he said, really? Yeah. Amy was still performing a few weeks before she passed away. You could see in stages. She's not doing well. So when they told me, my first thought was, this is my worst nightmare. Our love had nothing to do with addiction,

and addiction had nothing to do with our love. Just before I got told that Amy passed away, the last letter that I received was, Wow, look at that. Hey there, before we get started, I just want to say a huge thank you for being here and watching the show. It's really one of the greatest honors of my career to have these conversations. Can I ask a small favor?

Hit the subscribe button, please. It's just one click, it's completely free, and it helps us grow the community. The more we grow, the bigger the guests we can bring on, and the deeper the conversations we can have. Thank you, truly, it means a lot. Blake Fielder, we need to talk. This is it. We need to talk.

Let's do it. Let's talk. Let's talk. So here's where I'd love to begin. I have not known you to ever, ever do a long-form interview. I have not. So why are you ready to finally talk? I feel like.

there comes a point where I need to take control of my own narrative slightly. Not in a sense of grandiose about myself, just taking ownership of it to a point where I would like, as I said, to Pruza, I'd like people to see who I am. Nothing more than that. Just be genuine, have a chat with you, tell you some stories, talk about some things, talk about some things, talk about some feelings. Yes. It fills me with dread on a little bit, but I'm okay.

I'm with you. Okay, okay. So on that note, how do you truly feel in this moment before us going into this conversation? I'm talking about something that, as you said, the past 10, 15, 20 years, however, that I've been a known person in the media in the sense. It has been a raw deal and I'd not necessarily been accurately represented. So I think those feelings of nerves are probably related to that, probably a little bit of a trauma response to talking to anyone about a part of my life that I associate with with caution. Yes. Well, we'll take it.

We're going to take it slow, as slow as you want to take it. And I think a great place to begin with is you growing up. Okay. Because, you know, your story is typically linked to Amy Winehouse. It is, yes. But many people don't know you. No. Where you grew up, what those circumstances were.

So where were you born? I was born in Ketering. Where is this? I couldn't even really tell you. I've never been back. Oh, really? Yeah, my dad was, my dad was a Londoner, a Cockney, born in Bo. Okay.

He's a region from South London, though. My family's where they were shipwrites on the docks in Deptford. Yes? Yeah. But he got moved out during the Blitz to Leicester. Okay. And then he met, he stayed in Leicester. He was a real craft girl.

He got a bar in Spain. him and my mum met went out there to work on it in his bar in Spain and then my mum felt pregnant and they were going to have me in Spain I was going to be called Ramon Really? I know that sounds I was saying about what would it be

Ramon. Yeah, Ramon, that would be better, isn't it? I mean, Blake is, I like Blake there. Thank you. So he, but my mum didn't want me to do the national service that was in Spain at the time. You know, we have to do a year in the army So they came back to England and it was capturing.

Wow, look at that. From there, I came back to London probably when I was about 16, 17. Oh, wow. I was young. You was right. And so when you came back to London, what were you doing? Oh, my days, I was doing anything I could. My first job was a hairdresser.

Really? Yeah. Then from that kind of creative was where I wanted to be. I knew I wanted to do things that were a little bit creative. creative per se. So I was a florist after that. So I had the most masculine two jobs going. I was a hairdresser and a hairdresser and a florist. Yes. And then I ended up in music videos. Okay. Okay. So in music videos, what in particular were you doing? Well, I would do pretty much anything. When I started, it was as a runner. Obviously, unpaid and then bit by bit worked up to production assistant. And then some of my bigger jobs were

things like behind the scenes featureettes making of. This was a time period where a lot of money was being pumped into music videos. Yeah, you're right. I mean, music videos were the way to launch. And they were an event, if you remember. Yes. Music videos came up. Yeah, I did work.

I worked on, and that means, as in like in some capacity, some great videos. One of my favorite ones was for Kasabian called Shoot the Runner. It's a really nice video. I ended up being in one of Lily Allen's videos. Did you? Yeah, I was working on that, and then an extra didn't turn up. I did it. I stepped up.

Unpaid. Unpaid, of course. Of course. Of course. But that must have been a great time for you. It was actually when I look back, yeah. A quick content warning that my conversation includes mentions of addiction and suicide, so please watch with care.

So I'm curious, at this point, do you have, or what is, should I say, what is your relationship with drugs and alcohol at this point? I think with regards to drugs, I had always had one of those non-curiosity curiosities regarding. So if I think back when I was 1314, one of my favorite films was called Dazed and Confused, which is about a sense. 70s high school on their last day when they break up. And you know, like when the seniors get the freshmen and they like hit them with like sticks. Yes, yes. And the women, the girls, the seniors are making the,

they do all these crazy stuff, like hazing, that's it. Hazing, yeah. And it was all like different culture. They smoked cannabis in this film. And I just thought it was a cool character. I know that sounds so lame looking back as a 40-year-old man man to think how susceptible I was as a youngster. And then believe it or not, my next best film,

favorite film was train spotting. Oh, well. I know. Well, I know. And I've only just started admitting this to myself, because my partner and my, my, my oldest dad, my step, son. They watched this film recently. And I remember thinking, that film, unfortunately, for me,

it had a different effect. So, so that looks in no way, trying to be comical about it. It's a sense of ice. saw that and thought that looked interesting. Okay. What in particular looked interesting in that film to you? Drug use, I think. It looked.

But I don't want to be doing like the film a disservice because it's a fantastic film and a great book. I mean, you know, it wasn't responsible but doing drugs at all. That was me. I just, I'm trying to get across. I didn't have that fear of it. It wasn't. I never saw that and thought, ooh.

So how old were you when you first? Was it cannabis? Yeah. Was the first? Yeah, like a lot of people, cannabis is the first thing you try when you're younger, you know? And some people, you know, it's a plant, isn't it? You know? I've got a slightly different view on it now as a grown-up, you know.

But as a youngster, in my teens, it was probably that natural curiosity. And obviously, you know, that's something that there's something that, you know, that's something that that you're a parent, you'll be worried about with your children. Do they have that curiosity? Absolutely. You know, if they watch a film, are they like thinking, or are they going, oh? Absolutely. No, you're right.

You're right. And so with that curiosity, you're 13, you start to dabble in cannabis. Cannabis, yeah. Alcohol as well? Yeah, yeah. If it was available, it wasn't a case of have to go to the shops and get cider. It was maybe, you know, would share a bottle between three or four of us. Okay.

But also, too, is this is what I'm learning now that I'm a resident, official resident of the UK. Good, perhaps. Is it? Thank you. Thank you. Is that I think the relationship with alcohol is slightly different here than in the United States. I think the culture in England and it's been way.

well stated is the binge drinking. That's, that's an issue. If you go to Europe and you go to maybe France or Spain or even Holland, you can see people drinking, but they're not drinking from five until 11 solidly just drinking pines. They'll maybe have a drink and then go and have some food and then do something else and then have a drink. We're in England. It's sit in the pub and stay in the pub.

Okay. And the culture was different in the early. 2000s in the 90s. It was celebrated. There was pieces in the newspaper that were top cana, you know, and that was the terminology used as in who's the guy that's getting the most drunk, which celebrity is partying the most. Oh, interesting.

It was, it was, seems a good thing. I mean, I guess it still would be now, but pictures of people, the lad culture. Yes. You know, it seems like a long time ago, but in reality, you know, it wasn't that long ago. but yeah, it was far more football pints. Right. Did you... Zoom magazine.

Yes, magazine, yep. Did you... So at what age did you move from cannabis to harder drugs? So not young. I wasn't, you know, it wasn't super young. I was maybe 16 and a half, 17 to 16. And it was a line of Coke. Okay.

Okay. It was with some pals of mine that I've done it a few times. And yeah, I don't really remember much about it. But yeah, there was something there that I think I was more, again, it's embarrassing to look back about these things. I think how I feel. I'm just trying to be genuine with you. Please. Thank you.

This isn't how I feel now. You stress that. But at the time, I think it was. something I was very excited about. Yes. It made me feel grown up and a bit interesting. Okay. And confident as well.

Obviously that's a well-known thing, but yeah, I think I remember, I bumped into one of my old teachers and I noticed after maybe 30 seconds that he was looking at me very strangely. This was the first night I tried cocaine. Oh, okay. And I realized it's, yeah, it may be. slightly talkative maybe talkative yes but now can we expand on the on the confidence piece yes sure is that at in your teens 13 14 I was very

uncomfortable in my own skin at that age were you yeah yeah I thought that drugs was my personality I thought and that is why when when I was first exposed to the media and very quickly that became my narrative it felt comfortable to me unfortunately and that was that was the view by which I looked at myself as an addict okay but I also before I was an addict years before I was an addict I knew in my I looked at myself as somebody that I don't know how I'd say now I went out and had a good time or I was sociable any type of euphemism but up until I wouldn't say I was an addict I would be using cocaine two three times a

week okay and I wouldn't and I wasn't what I would consider myself as an addict at that point and I was more I don't know if it was functioning or I just thought all my friends were doing it and they were I mean and and my friends weren't the people that you'd necessarily imagine how addicts you know you might have an image of it the people have good jobs when we're families some of them and just normal people so it's why I was like of this mindset you can do drugs and still be okay and maybe that's just me. I thought maybe I was one of those, you know,

I could be this spiritual person that was able to do that, but I wouldn't be addicted. Okay, which is fair. And I don't know the figures, but I'd estimate there's hundreds of millions of people around the world in some form of addiction, not just opiates, alcohol, gambling, eating disorders. Yes.

There's so many that people aren't always, conscious of that count as an addiction, that are an addiction, shopping. Shopping. Yes. Compulsive spending. So I wasn't the only person doing it. I wasn't, you know, an outlier. There was lots of my friends.

You know, we were all doing it. We were all just experimenting. But Blake, what is, what qualifies as an addiction? And then at what point do you move from a recreational user to an addict at what age? It's an interesting question. because I would say when before I was a heroin addict, when I look back now, you know, with clear eyes and sobriety, I can see, I can see that I was probably always an addict.

Interesting. Of some sort, I think there was, there was always, it was, it was just in me. It was just in me. If it was, it would be whatever I, I, did it wasn't enough it felt like until drugs were also there so if I was on a night out or going to the pictures with my friends or you know just doing normal things it would be better with drugs okay so I'd say the addiction for me was was probably always there mentally physically um Amy and I had been we I can't remember where we'd know I'd been to Spain she'd been somewhere

We met up in London. We had a few days together. And we were partying, doing drugs and drinking, just us too. And then we had a day we were like, oh, let's chill out now. And then there was a point the next afternoon where we both said that we were feeling. I said, I feel funny. I said, me too. At this point, I'd maybe smoke heroin ten times, maybe, maybe half,

between half a dozen, no more than a dozen times. smoked it. Wouldn't have thought of injecting it was wasn't even a possibility at that stage. Wouldn't have wanted to, didn't need to. Amy, maybe three or four times. We'd done it too much in too many days in a row. So I think we'd gone from it once a week and then again maybe the next week, then not done it for a week, then met up again the next week, done it a few times. And then when we'd done it two, three days in a row over this weekend, spent together. That was the first time that I can remember hand on art going, oh, I can actually feel it now. I know what, you know, what everyone was talking about. This is interesting. So you, you feel as if you and Amy became addicts together? No, I know for a fact we did. Yeah,

they did. Yeah. That is completely and just that, that is exactly how it happened, the sense of I tried it, I'd done it. And as I'm freely admitting, I was always had that addict inside me. But yeah, my first actual dependency, where I'm waking up and going, shit, I need to use something to feel normal, was around that time. Wow. This would have been 2004 or five time. Okay. For me, what's so interesting about this is that when I, you know, did as much research as possible with you coming in here, a lot of the articles depict you as an addict prior. Yeah, of course.

to meeting Amy. Yeah. And you're refuting that. No, I am in a sense of when people think of, I was not what you would call, and I wasn't in daily addiction. Drugs were not, I didn't wake up and need drugs. The funny thing is, but we were so naive as drug addicts.

And we were, no, no, you know, I'm not at all kind of trying to dismiss that in any way. we were fully addicts by this stage, but we were very naive. I can think of an example. We were once in Switzerland, and we're feeling poorly, withdrawing. And the tour manager, or somebody associated with Amy's team, they managed to get us medication. And this medication, there's two types of medication for,

well, it's free now for opiate addiction. One of them is subtyx, and what that does, is it's a sublingual, so it goes under your tongue, it dissolves. We swallowed them straight away, because we had no idea what they were. We weren't addicts. We were just people that had, well, we were addicts, sorry, but we weren't in that. Yes, yes. I see the distinction.

I see the distinction. Because also what you are, you know, what I'm learning from you is that you're saying, you're saying addiction is here. Yeah. And definitely. And it was here with you. But it physically, you know, since you were a little... I've always thought this.

I thought people are born like that. There's some people in the world that if you're at a party and then you say, somebody says, do you want to lie, mate? Some people will say yes. Some people will say no. Why? Why do some people say, yeah, I'll try that. Right, right.

Why is that? How do you think behavior shapes our addiction patterns and how do you think trauma does because and only if you're open to talking about this is that I understand at we were a young boy but at nine that there was an incident that happened you did try to take your life I'm yeah I had done that when I was younger I didn't expect to ask that okay should we pass by it's an important part of my life growing up I was as I said I wasn't I wasn't I wasn't happy in myself even as a youngster yeah yeah it was it was a route away from who of what I felt I was or or just a way to not to not be me yeah you know like why I think this is

important in your story and at any point we can pass by it we could stop is that I'm beginning to get a picture of your life yeah and your thoughts and your feelings. And at nine, for a young boy that age, to begin to think about not wanting to be here is having. I think I'd started a new school, a private school. I got like reverse posh boy bullied.

If you've ever seen the in between us, when Will goes from a six form that was a private school to his comprehensive one, he gets bullied for carrying a briefcase. Yes. It was the opposite way around at this school. All the kids had briefcases like businessmen. They were like nine and ten years old.

And I had a bag, right? Yes. And, yeah, we, it was just, it was just a different thing for me to feel, as I already did anyway, that was just different or less than or something that didn't belong. And I definitely didn't belong in a folding school. Sorry. Sorry. I think if I could go back not to be too, you know, new age about it, but I would give myself a hug.

I was a really, I was a really sensitive boy, little boy at the time, and I don't think any boy should ever feel like, or child I should say, any child in that age or any person should feel that that's, that's what they've got to do. Yeah. And so this was your life at nine and ten. Yeah.

And you could begin to see how those moments shape how you see yourself, how you begin to interact with the world. That's right. Yeah. And you know, that nine-year-old me, that kind of like sensitive, that became more pronounced. I guess it's still who I am now. I'm still quite introverted.

For a long time, my, funnily enough, going forward, sorry, now to my 30s to my very, very lowest stages of addiction. That was my routine. I would do drugs and then I would read horrible comments about myself to buy into that idea of being worthless and I didn't deserve to be in. I didn't deserve to be clean and I didn't deserve to be happy. And I got that confirmation through people saying, yeah, he should die or I'm going to kill him. Yeah, I get crazy death threats.

I still get death threats. So I realized, that's why I got more social media by the way. But yeah, so that really, really fed into the addiction. So all along my personality, I'd like to think I kept true to who I was, but that would be an absolute life. The addiction completely manipulated my personality. Not, I was still me, but when I was in my lowest in addiction, I would do the things that you'd expect someone to do. I would manipulate, I would lie, I would shoplift.

It's not a proud moment for me, but I was living as an addict. Yes. So yeah, it was something that unfortunately, I think it's funny, you mentioned that when I was nine. I put my heart in my mouth for a minute, because I think I don't wanna think about that, or talk about that. But yeah, I guess, I guess drugs always were

just a way for me to not be me. Yes, I can see it, I can see it. So now, in your 20s, can we talk about a rendezvous at a pub? Oh, yeah, okay. At a pub, which it's interesting. I think, well, I want to say, I think I might have gone to this pub or I don't know if it's closed now.

A good mix of a? Yeah, yeah, I think so. It should still be there. Yeah, okay, still be there. Can you take me to that day, that evening when you met Amy? So it really was a case of I, I've been in, I'd been to watch a horse race I'd want some money

and so I had that cockiness so I was a bit flash so I walked into the pub giving it large but I mean I was a 20 odd year old man and full head of hair and you know pocket full of money so all of that felt really good

and felt I think I think looking back yeah I was starting to get to a stage of enjoyment in my life for the first time, and a bit of security, not in a sense of a mortgage and a job, just in a, that's who I want to be,

that's the type of person that's what I'm going to do. She was playing pool, if I remember, and I was quite good at pool, so obviously asked for a game of pool. You did? Yeah, I said, can't play next. And then from there, you know by that time, don't you?

You do. So you see her playing pool, which, believe it or not, There's a few little things I have for you. Okay. I want to show you this is... Yeah, yeah, exactly like that. It looks something like this.

Exactly like that, yeah. Yeah. With that hair, that type of top. Yeah. Yeah. She loved Paul. She loved Paul. She, and I didn't realize that.

So she was good at pool. Yes, she was good at pool. It was good as me, but she was good. Okay. So she could beat me quite often. Oh, she could? Yeah, she was that good. And she played a lot.

All right, all right. So she's playing, you see her, and you decide. side to play. Yeah. Do you remember the first words that you utter to each other? As much as it would be nice to say, it was something great. No, it would have just been, do you want to drink? Okay.

Okay. Do you want to drink? If it's not broken, you don't have to fix it. I think, but you've got to remember dating in 2002 or 2001, whether it was when we first met, I think it was 2001. It was slightly different climate to today. It wasn't quite the same. it was perhaps more,

it was perhaps more expected in common to chat someone in a pub, to chat someone up. Yes, yes. To talk to somebody that you meet rather than, you know, to rent a day or to, just a different climate.

It was, it was, you're right. So I was able to say, what you fancy drink, or do you want a game, just something like that. And then from there, we were just doing nothing. You're just doing your thing,

talking back and forth. What was it about her that really caught your eye in those first few moments? I've always maintained that she was a, it's a beautiful, beautiful one. And I know that Amy had self-image issues. Again, I could elaborate on that in the sense that the media weren't always kind about Amy's appearance even before the addiction.

I remember an article describing her as a plump jazz star. This is like years and years. So years before back to back was written. Okay. So there was always that kind of narrative. Again, the press, I'd like to think they're kinder nowadays. I know they're not. But it was fully accepted and able to say,

oh, this person's fat. There was those things called a Ring of Truth on a cover of a Celebrity magazine. And they would highlight a picture of, say, a celebrity. And it would be something about them, like if they had, like if they had hair under their up, arm or hair on the face or like, you know, dry skin on their feet. And they would zoom it up to make it massive.

And they did want to be having like some kind of baby hair on the side of her face. Okay. And just made a real thing of it and her acne. So I think that was a part of our thing at first was that she thought I was good looking. I knew she was. So she got a validation in a sense from me saying, you're hot. I see it. Like, you know.

I see it. Because she didn't really. believe that she was attractive. Exactly that. Okay. And I think I would challenge, the people that you'll have had on here as well, you'll have had that where you can have a hundred people saying nice things, then one or two people that, for some reason, you know, they're the ones that you're remembering that can

keep you up at night sometimes, especially then take as account being in your 20s. Yes. Young. So 2004. Mm-hmm. Okay. So you meet 2004. at this point, Frank, her album, Frank, is already out, right?

Yes, yeah, yeah. Okay, so did you recognize her as a musician? No, we went on a, when she told me that she was a musician, I was like, oh, because it was in Camden and everyone was a musician. But then I, I mean, she said, no, no, like, I'm actually good. She was like, no, I'm a real musician. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not, like, saying it. I was like, all right.

And then when we first sort of chilled it indoors, and she got a guitar and singing to me, I was like, oh, it amazing. Oh, there she was real. Okay. But I didn't know the music. It wasn't my music per se. I've been into hardcore punk for 30 years. That's all I really tend to listen to.

But Amy's music was something that, you know, anyone could appreciate it. Anyone could hear and go, oh, that's really, really, different and unusual and beautiful and you know her voice was was obviously special so i had an appreciation for as soon as i knew it but no one of our first dates we went into mcdonalds and she went oh this is one of my songs oh wow yeah and i was like oh look at that look at that because i i think also it's important for everyone to understand that when frank came out this is her first album yeah and it charted but it was nowhere near the mass success Yeah, I don't know.

The Back to Black was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As far as I'm a, well, no, I know Back to Black, obviously did. Yeah, huge numbers because that was, you know, I was around at that part. By the time I met Amy, yeah, Frank had come out, that we weren't followed everywhere by the press. It was there. There was an element of it, but it was no way how it got. How good.

So now with meeting Amy as well, what I saw. in, you know, all the films reading is that she had a boyfriend, you had a girlfriend. Is that accurate or no? Semi, I did have, yes, it is accurate. I did, we were seeing other people, but in a sense, I always thought I was, at least in my head, I thought I was quite upfront in that sense. I didn't try and deceive Amy. I didn't say, you know, this isn't my situation.

But at the same time, yeah, I was seeing somebody else, she was seeing somebody else. It was not ideal. The funness of like, oh, it's so scummy. But the illicitness of being like, oh, it's in a fair. It's not fun. It's not sexy. You just want to be with that person. You don't want to do that.

And you don't want to carry that in your soul. Because it went to that relationship. Yes. But now in the first, what was it the first? Well, it will you talk? You tell us is that the first month or so, you two were together all the time. All the time. Because didn't she, this is where she got the tattoo of your name.

Straight away. Was it within the first, like straightway? Within a couple of weeks, she came to see me at work. She used to come in maybe three, four times a week to come and sit with me, like, have a drink. And she came in one day. It was like an afternoon. We went upstairs. really nice cafe in Camden.

She went upstairs to the balcony. She goes, I've got something to show you. And then she showed me, yeah. Two weeks, ten days, maybe. It was cool. Obviously, you know, you're like, whoa, for me. That's me. Yeah.

Two weeks in, she has your name. She then can't be in the other relationship. You'd think? Yeah, I was thinking. You can't unless she is a smooth, smooth. Yeah. No, obviously, I think there was no hiding it on her side from that point. But Amy could be ruthless.

She would just tell you. She was a lot, a lot braver than me. She would just say, she'd be like, no, I'm with this. I'm done, I'm with him. I'm with it. In that first nine to ten months, right? Yeah. What are some of the things that you two would enjoy doing?

You know, what was life like between the two of you? Well, we were young. So we were in our 20s in Camden. So it was a good social scene. Amy didn't do drugs at this stage. She liked smoking cannabis. So our lives were at that stage going to the pub, playing pool, watching a lot of films,

sitting on the balcony of the front porch, like just sitting there drinking bottles of Dooley's or Baileys, horribly sweet liquors and liquors. Occasionally getting stoned together. Yeah What would you all talk about? Because one of the things that I Just have been so impressed by

Is Amy's writing ability Yeah And how Definitely yeah Yeah how incredible of a songwriter she is Yeah Which tells me that her thoughts When her heart was in it

Yes Yeah she could write amazing I say that when the heart was in it There's times when Amy could have had the opportunity to write the music for the Bond film yeah yeah they asked her to do the second Daniel Craig one is it quantum of solace I believe they asked her to do that and she

she couldn't do it at that stage her heart wasn't in it she'd that's right me when I say she was brave you know so she wanted to do something she it would be done it would be done I see it I know she loved singing I know she loved performing but I also know there was a side of Amy that would have loved to have been able to just be somebody completely anonymous. Okay. In a sense, I don't mean that as in she didn't want to have her talent.

She did. She loved it. It was what she was born to do. But there were times in the first nine, ten months where even though, as I've said earlier, the press wasn't as bad, there were still occasions when she would be out shopping and she wasn't able to shop because people would come up to her and it would get quite intense. There was no bodyguards around. She was just like, out shopping.

in Sainsbury's. And she, yeah, I remember that quite, quite vividly. She came back one time, really, really upset before, back to black, after Frank just said, you know, I don't know if I want this. Really? I want to be able to go and do normal things. But I feel like obviously if she would still be around, she would definitely have worked out how to do both by now.

How to that, yeah. I didn't realize that at that period that, that she was already beginning to have an adverse reaction to people recognizing her. Not just people recognizing unkind comments in newspaper articles or just it would sometimes affect people's perceptions. So Amy was quite, especially from back to back, after that stage with rehab song, it was almost accepted that it was a part of the, it was a part of the tabloids week. they'll get a picture of Amy drinking, you know, or partying. So I think, yeah, I think there was an advert, there was always an awareness.

I think Amy used to work for a newspaper as well. So she knew full well what she was dealing with. All right, all right, fair. So she wrote, I fell in love with somebody who I would have died for. We were in love and we were together and that's like a real drug. Would you say that you two fell for each other too fast? With Amy and I, we were in love, no doubt about it, and most definitely would have died for each other

and would have done anything for each other. It wasn't a case that it was more too intense, too fast. Can I show you a photo? Most sadly. that I believe is one of the coolest photos I think I've ever seen of a couple. And to me, this represents the epitome of London during this time. That's it. That's a happy picture that, isn't it?

Yes. Can you describe what's happening there? Yeah. I'm doing, I think what's going on. Sorry, that's an ace picture. It's funny seeing these pictures. These aren't things I look at. Yeah.

These are memories which are hard for me to revisit. You understand that? It's hard for me because she's not here still. I hear you. And that was my best mate. Yeah. And, you know, we were happy and The drugs was a side of it eventually,

but there was also just the day-to-day couple life, just feeling safe together, watching a film, having a laugh together, maybe having a meal, normal stuff that love was built on. Our love had nothing to do with addiction, and addiction had nothing to do with our love. That's where it went. It wasn't who we were in that.

I'm with you. And that's why this, for me, and I won't even, I know it's, it's, You know, it's interesting. I didn't realize how heavy looking at some of these images would be for you. But now hearing what you're saying, especially because you haven't looked at these in quite some time. For me, this embodied, I think, the love that you two had, you know? Bit cheeky, bit silly.

Bit silly, cheeky. So when you think about how fast that. that love was. So you said that you really, it was fast, it was intense. Is that what led to the first breakup? Yeah, obviously the drinking was creeping up. And then I said, this is getting a bit much. And we're saying horrible things to each other

when we don't mean. Let's give it a little rest. It was after that she was the first attempt at rehab, yeah. Okay. So, for alcohol, not for drugs. Exactly, for alcohol. So, and this is also during this period, she's writing Back to Black.

That's right, yeah. So this gave her the experiences. So, yes, so me, essentially, obviously, there's been so many people that have said it. I remember this is me being a name dropper. You ready? Yes. I was at Cachele Festival and Drew Barrymore

came into the dressing room and I love Drew Barrymore. Yes. Yes. Amy too. She came into the dressing room and said, Back to Black's the best breakup album ever. goes, I broke up with my boyfriend recently, and I've just been driving around, listening to it in the car, and just it's helped me so much.

Yes, yes. So back, but that came from a real place because it was our breakup. It was. So, you know, when I think about this, is that back, so back to black, let's just look at the sheer reach of it. Yeah. So over eight times platinum in the UK. Well, I know she did very well.

I've been with her when she was presented lots of discs. I remember lots of discs. Lots of discs. Yeah. So Back to Black was certified eight times platinum in the UK, three times platinum in the U.S. It sold over 20 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of the 2000s. It spent over 170 weeks on the UK albums chart. Yeah.

Went on to win five Grammys. Yeah. All right. Now, I happen to have right here next to me, if this is okay. I'm not sure if it's too much I've got thanked on this Oh you do Yeah I think my name's on here at the vaccine

I know it's definitely in the thanks Let's see if it's inside I'll show you it Because I remember she bought it to the pub to show me And I was laughing So I just get one little Oh here it is Yeah

Oh wow I know I know I know you were just Can you see now why I was a little bit I'm like hmm I see it Hmm

Thank you yeah You're just kind of mixed in there But I think she was at the time when this was asked to be off, to write her thanks, she was still in seeing the person that she'd been seeing over our break. So she was trapped in a bit of a position of, I can't really release this album and then thank the person it's about, because, you know, it's. Yes.

Yes. I mean, it is. It's a genuinely authentic upset, breakup album, sorry. It is genuinely to the point where. You recommend it to people when they're, Oh my goodness. Listen to this. Do you have a favorite track?

Yeah. I liked, I like, well, like, when I was seeing a live, my favorite track's not on there. My favorite track was on Frank. So my favorite track of Amy's Ever is called Fuck Me Pumps, which is the best song on Frank, in my opinion. My favorite song in this one, I loved the beat of, You Know I'm No Good. Yes. I went to see that music video. That was a, I had a real, you know,

trip because she's like this that guy's you that's you that yeah it's the first time I knew that she'd written any song about me It always when she said oh Blake I'm I'm doing a video. Do you want to come and see me? I was like yeah, course. I'll come and see you I went there. I had no idea what the album was she hadn't played it to me really and I'm stood there and and then I was like listening things. I'm hearing lines like Jamaica and Spain and I'm like well I went to Jamaica and you went to Is this about I said is this about me and I and I'm just It's all about you. So the whole album's about you.

So it's like when I was in the Blake tattoo, I was like, what? What? You know, that kind of like, I'm happy and proud and like, but blown away as well, like how, it's such a strange feeling to have somebody write, you know, not just songs, beautiful, amazing songs about you. Yes. Even if some of it's like you were a bit of a, a bit of a bastard, bit of a player, a bit of a, you know, like that kind of, Amy liked that sound, that kind of 60s,

girl group sound she liked she liked that kind of feeling which was obviously more you know acceptable maybe 20, 30 years ago she liked the idea of being like hopelessly in love yes of being you know almost old fashioned

in a sense she said to me many times I want to just be a wife just make your dinner and just you know that to be us this I'm just your wife yes get your beer out to work

type thing. Yeah. You know, quite honestly, it's, it's, it's an album that you just can play. There's no skips. Do you know, finally enough, when me and Amy used to be, we, you know, we were in last time it happened, I think I can remember it was in Cairns or Nice or whatever, and we'd gone to a bar and they were playing it. And she always said, can you turn that off?

Yeah. She would never like, like, let's want to hear it out and about. Why do you think that is? I don't know. I think maybe it. It contained a lot of memories for her that went deeper than just somebody, you know, maybe singing along to react. Okay, okay. I think that's not, I think that's part of why Amy, aside from the music, aside from the, the, the, the, this, the actual genius of the songs is that people can relate to it because she's writing about things that most people have felt, you know, like just being in love with somebody and it not working out.

for whatever reasons and how that feels and how it hurts and yes loves a real dark emotion at times you can make you do some really crazy things yes and and the the the rawness of it i i um was i heard uh or actually i read there was an account where she was pitching the album or i think the one of the one of the executives at the label wanted her to come demo some of the songs and for back to black for back to black and specific and And Amy demoed two of the songs. And the response was, can you do something lighter? You know, can sing about, you know, love as we know it, right?

And I think that a lot of people would have gone and switched and rewrote. There was no doing that with Amy. This, do you know what? That's one of the things that I've always, when I, when I'm, my stance now is, is that I know a lot of people, especially people reading media 20 years ago, would have an idea that Amy's passing is my responsibility. As I've always said,

I never shirk from any responsibility. If I've done something, I'll put my hand up to it. But I'm okay. I'm not okay, but I've made my piece with, yeah, I had a part to play. But there's one thing, aside from everyone else, that also had a role to play, 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 and even even though the drinking had started to hurt her she carried on

and I just feel that sometimes that can get lost on that album there's that element like I just said of her being helplessly in love which was actually she's actually a very strong woman. Yes, right, right.

You know, can we talk about anything you on? Yeah. So you realize this album is about you. Yeah. What do you begin to feel as a result of hearing these lyrics? Yeah, when I first heard the album, obviously, same as everyone else in a sense of, that's a really good song. That's really, and just listening to it.

This is really good, obviously. The lyrics was something that I'm never good with hearing lyrics. I had to read them. When I read them, it was like reading old glove letters in a way because they're referencing certain things between us, you know, things that we've spoke about, things that we've said to each other. Yes.

So it's surreal to see that and to hear people singing it. And to be in a taxi and to hear it, you know, to that song. You think that's about me, or that's about us, or that's about when that happened, or this is, you know? Yes, it's quite strange. Were there any lyrics that surprised you? Hmm. There's a few perhaps that were a little bit close to the bone.

Okay. Yeah. Which ones are you? Yeah, I mean, if you could, yeah, because I'm curious to find that, because the whole album is basically about you. Okay, so when I had to have a conversation with a girl I was seeing about,

he left no time to regret, kept his dick wet with his same old safe bet that was something that obviously was a comfortable conversation to have with a girl I was seeing at the time she said, am I the safe bet? And you know, obviously I felt a responsibility in that sense.

So there were times, of course, where I was like, oh, that's what I see when it's about a love letter or a page of a diary. Right. Do you know? Right. I had no ownership of it. Like, you know, it wasn't that.

Okay, it was just a sense of, yeah, it's kind of exposed in a way. Yes, but it seems like all the lyrics were true. Yeah, they were, but really a lot of people would look at back to back, but this is about, you know, a bad relationship. Yes. And, you know, it's so tortured and so, but it wasn't. We actually had a lot of fun or else there wouldn't have been that sadness after. That's right.

But the fact that every lyric, you say every lyric was true, I think that's also the brilliance of Amy Winehouse. Because so many I think songwriters will almost embellish moments. Yeah. You know? No, it's lived experience. You could be the most famous source material for an album, for like a best-selling album ever, you know? Yeah, I wonder it's not something you hear about really often, is it?

Muses. No, you are the muse. Can I ask you about rehab? Yeah. Because I remember I was watching the documentary, Amy. In 2015, film. Absolutely. Which, by the way, what did you think about that film?

I thought it was really fair. I thought that for me, at that time in my life, it felt so, I felt so supported by an aspect of that process, the filmmakers themselves, especially the producer James. he um I wasn't portrayed as as the bad guy I felt at that time before the documentary that was the only that was the only um narrative put forward by the papers there was a journalist at amy's funeral for some reason

and he he'd made a point of you know of squarely attributing amy's not being there to me he said we all know why amy's not here today we're not even going to say his Meanwhile, I hadn't been in a relationship with Amy for a couple of years at this point. She was seeing somebody else. I was, you know, in a new relationship. I was just trying to live my life. So the documentary that kind of didn't hammer that home, it didn't seem to want to villainize me. It's okay to have the facts, yeah, I was a young drug addict at the time, and I was not in a good position.

I'm talking about, you know, when the addiction came in and when we divorced, etc. And then eventually what happened? The documentary felt like the first ever time that somebody hadn't just tried to say the same story. This guy villainise him. You know, there's no other blame here. Nobody else's response to only this one single addict. And that felt like the documentary was like, no, no, you know, this isn't. Yes.

It's not live. It's not how it happened. And that's just not how life works. So this was my interpretation of that particular film was that there was this equation around the passing of Amy. And there was lots of components to that equation. You were one, but there were others that were in that equation. But a question that I do have just in this moment.

moment, thinking back to the album, is that with rehab, the attempt was to place her into rehab, but it was for alcohol addiction. That's right, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Dad had taken into a rehab, but obviously, famously, didn't go in. Okay. Or did go into the reception and looked around at the people there and said, I'm not this.

I'm not drinking mouthwash and, you know, waking up. when in the middle of the light tips of drink, I just binge drink occasionally when I'm upset, was her reasoning at the time. Okay, okay. It's quite hard to label yourself as something, if you know, when you think, is that what I am? Yes, which is why, previously, you know,

we were talking about the line between... Dependency and addiction. Dependency and addiction, yeah. They are two separate things, I believe, in a sense. You can be what's called like a dry drunk, for example, where you don't drink, but you still make sure you do the same routines every day. You know, you might go in a pub and order a Coke,

you know, but you still have to be in the pub. No, so there's an element of that in a sense of, for me, dependency, as in I woke up and I needed opiates to even, for I could even walk, you know, is where it went. Didn't start like that, but that's where it went, not where it went. So we both had that,

that addict insiders, addiction to disease, but we both had that component. And yeah, you know, that's what took Amy and, yeah, was alcohol, she wasn't using drugs when she died. Yeah, she wasn't. Drugs and drugs, no drugs in her system when she died. But what's also hitting me now is that it was the perfect storm brewing right when this album comes out back to black.

Yeah. Because you two are rekindling your love affair um you are two are not addicts no that's right yeah then you add on the press you add on the money yeah and yeah definitely that also sometimes it's an unreal situation being uh in an environment like on tour you know it's not it's not a very kind of a it's not a generic thing is it to be traveling into different countries every day for 12 hours and playing a show, part of that culture would be drinking

or would be drugs. Drugs and alcohol will always be involved in the music, unfortunately. So how quickly do you two come back together? I remember clearly the confirmation of let's just do this again, let's just get back together.

I'd gone to see her in a pub called the Holy Armton, Camden, the guy that she was previously seeing showed up and she said, I'm with Blake, obviously, I'm going to be with Blake. I know, I've always loved Blake. You knew that when I met you,

so you can't really be too upset about it. She was just, that a matter of fact. Yeah, and the guy got photographed. It was a story. There were journalists everywhere. They knew it, and they said, oh, Amy gets rid of Alex. Was that really the moment that you two were back to you? From then on, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So that was, that was, I'd say we were married about maybe seven, eight months later. Look at that. So you're married seven, eight months later. Can I, this is the last photo that I have, by the way. Is it a wedding bit? This is okay.

This is. Good. This is good. You two looked phenomenal. Thank you. This is you and Amy. It's a beautiful, Jason. Very good.

But, you know, I think she looks. elegant, but you look classy. Very classy. I've got a nice suit doing a lot of heavylift in there. She rang her friend, she ran Kelly Osborne. When she came, she's like, oh, we got married. Is Kelly Osborne the first person she called? She was, yeah, yeah. She was, yeah. She's a dear friend of us. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, lovely, lovely person. But yeah, I, I, believe it or not, neither of us were in addiction at that point. Amy had a little bit of a drink on our wedding day, no drugs. It just, it wasn't,

the narrative was so different at times to actually, oh, we did become that, but when we got married, we were in America, so we got married in Miami. And obviously, we just,

when you're on tour in a country, like America, I wasn't out trying to find drugs there. I didn't feel safe doing that. I didn't know people to buy drugs off, so I just didn't do drugs. I'm not saying they weren't there.

I just didn't know the people to ask. So our wedding day, no matter what anyone could ever say, couldn't never take that way. Both of us were fully, you know, it's compassmen. So this is also shocking because... No drugs at that day at all. To read the headlines, it was already you were addict, junkie. That wasn't. Like I said, we had, we'd smoked.

heroin. We'd head that weekend where we first really had we got a bit poorly from this. Then from them we'd head our kind of three or four months where it became more like a daily thing. But yet we still went to America with no substitute, no methadone or subrotex, which are the drugs that they'd normally do, the medication, they'd give you to help if you're an opiate addict. We had none of that. We just went out there and withdrawn. So I would spend maybe 14 hours in a hotel. Shivering, Amy would be, you know, in a bath or trying to get warm.

Horrible, horrible. But we'd just do that and then we'd be fine. Okay. And this is fine, fine, but yeah. And this is before the wedding. Yeah. So then even to go back then a couple months before is a moment that's often talked about. And I think this is great for you to be, create clarity around this is the moment is,

Okay, Blake introduced Amy to heroin, cocaine, and crack. Yeah. What's the truth behind you? So the truth, I mean, it's, to be fair, you know, if I was back in the day, I would say, yes, that's me, all my fault. But like I said, you were, you know, when we first met, I kind of need to, need to defend myself slightly on things. It's not fair. Do it. Do it.

People that love me to think, you know, in truths. Amy had started trying cocaine with their ex-partner. There's pictures of Amy at the Brits with, you know, as they do, I'll powder up the nose, you know. And yeah, it was known. It was known that Amy had to experiment with drugs and it was nothing to do with me. The heroin was something, as I said, I tried,

let's say 10 times, smoked it over a period of six months with some friends. That's where I was at with that. Yeah, she, first time she did it was with me. And it was probably my sixth time. Okay. Okay, fair enough. And the way that the story is told, at least, is that...

I think it's that I was a hardened drug addicts, and then I somehow, you know, would have manipulated that situation. It's just not true. It's not true. It's just not the case, no. And then also, did you encourage her to take the heroin? No. No, there was no encouraging or not.

It was a sense of in the same way that if I said, I know this is going to sound strange to a lot of people, if I said to my friend, do you want a beer in the pub, I'm not hoping that they fall into alcoholism. Or if I, at that stage of my life, was it a situation where I say, oh, do you fancy a line, mate, to my pals? I wasn't thinking with any lack, they'll become a drug addict. There was no destructive element to it. It was, do you want to try this? Right. Right, right. Because heroin for you, what did it do for you? It just gave me a cushion and a protection and allowed me to feel okay and myself in a way that, same way, cocaine gave me a confidence.

Heroin gave me an insulation, like a bubble. It kind of made you like, okay, yeah, I'm all right, I'm okay in here. Yeah. And also too, Blake, I would imagine at this time in those first few months before you got married, it just, Not that Amy becomes an overnight success because clearly she's successful, but I would imagine the level of fame just... Yeah, completely different. When the fame that Amy experienced and had from Frank was completely different to the back to black. Obviously, the press is still the press, you know, they still do their stories. But the amount of it, I think the second film, Back to Black with Jack O'Connell and... And Jack O'Connell plays you.

Yeah. Again, I don't think I came across as the villain in that film. As I, again, I'm trying to reiterate I don't see myself as. It was so strange for waking up and knowing that there's 100 people outside waiting to take a photo of you sneezing or looking a bit bit tackled. Yes. Yes. They could say horrible things about it. So everyone will join in and say oral things about you more.

And how bad did that press get? because this was the 2000s where there were the intrusion. They were still upskirting people in them days, right? No, it was just taking photos underneath. That was really underneath Amy skirt? No, I'm saying that was the press's, that was their vibe at the time. So they had those zero. We had, we got our phones act.

Yeah, I got, I got interviewed by the police years ago about, about having our phones tapped, which is crazy to think. How much kind of swayed the press at heavens? So I didn't fully or begin to understand this until we had Jamelia as a guest and her phone was hacked. Yeah. And she talked about how insular it made her because she began to think that her friends and family were selling stories. Completely and utterly empathize with that. But the same thing, you see something, you think, who could have said that?

And it does it. It completely, it makes you more insular in a sense. Amy and I, it was, like you said, a perfect storm. The fact that outside our window, there were people trying to tear us down, as we saw it, made our bond stronger and had drugs into that. And it just, and it did become to that daily addiction stage quite easily and quite quickly. And it was like, this is our safety net. Yeah.

Would you say that were you naive to the dangers of? Here are we? Yeah. Even though, like I said, I absolutely adored the film, DrainSpotting, you don't think that's going to be you. Like I said earlier with that thing of buying your mate a drink, you don't think alcoholism is going to, hundreds of millions of people around the world are in addiction. But yet, you just somehow think, no, I can have fun with it.

I'll be okay. I'm not like them guys. I do it like, you know, whatever kind of ways you try and justify it to yourself. So unfortunately, Amy never, ever got to a stage of IV drug use, of intravenous, injecting. I did. And, yeah, I would say my time after post-Amy, post-AIMy's passing, especially, was about as miserable and as full-on of any drug assistance as you could get. We're going to go there.

We're going to go there. Can't wait. Oh, my, I'm sure. I'm sure you're excited about that. Yeah. Maybe one other thing on the press, because I don't think, like, when I look at the images of you and Amy walking out of a anywhere, the flat walking out of, all I see is. Yeah. Flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, flash, Flash, Amy, Amy, Amy, oh, we.

Yeah, just walking backwards, you're just trying to walk somewhere. Yes. To go to the shop, to get some milk. I've seen like her accidentally hit a camera. I've heard stories of paparazzi throwing drug paraphernalia in the car. I've heard even, even I'd say eight months ago, I got photographed. I've been to the shop. I was making a breakfast.

I've been to the shop to buy some tinfoil to grill some bacon. Before I was vegetarian. And the photograph was. those blakes buying tinfoil, ha, heroin. That's another reason why I've come on here. No, I cannot escape it. And I think I've got people that love me and I'm not on drugs. Why should I just allow them to say it?

Am I not allowed to buy tinfoil for now on? Right, right. But this speaks to even that time period because you were being characterized as a junkie. Yeah, it was. So what was the conversation like between you and Amy? It's a horrible word, isn't it? It is. It's a horrible word.

I think about people in addiction. I think the kindness nowadays is far more than it was 20 years ago. Like I say, it was something to be laughed at or ridiculed or, you know, demonized. It's disgusting or it's this. There was a picture of me and Amy. We'd had a really bad. I'm sure you probably might talk about it. You might not.

There's a picture of Amy and I. we'd had a really, we'd had an argument. We'd, she'd ran off somewhere, I'd gone off somewhere, all drama and I'd self-armed, quite badly. Amy had also self-armed. Blood, I dripped onto a ballet pump. Yes, yes. And for the press, that was all they needed is,

Amy was injecting between her toes. And that was for years, and I imagine some people still think that's what that pitched. rather than the you know we've both got clearly cuts and it's just two sad people that have you know had an argument and it's public it's nothing good about it it's incredibly toxic not normal but we weren't cheated with any kindness or any normalcy it was look at these two you know he's doing this to her she's an addict a bad one and he's no it's his fault and it's his fault i didn't have to deal with that i didn't know how to deal with why is everyone hating me

It feels horrible psychically to even think like there's millions of people are reading that I'm trying to hurt this person that I love. It's hard memory to think about, but when I think about that, it's like it's a low point of my life. It shouldn't be a low because of shame or that it should be a low because that was some, you know, me and my best friend who I loved, crying out for help. Yes.

and just getting pointed at and laughed at and blamed while also keeps getting on stage, Amy, we need to get paid. Yes, yes. When I consider the media putting me out as a shield or Amy's management, I don't include her family in that. I think that's a natural reaction.

If I was a, you know, if I was Mitch in Mitch issues, I would also have thought, is this the guide that's making a do drugs? Because I don't want to imagine that she does them on her own. because then it might be on me. I might have done something wrong because, you know, it's not the case.

It's just addiction, it's how it is. But if you're having to, if you've got somebody that's the focal point, it just, I think that's what happened with Mitch. It became far less painful for him to look at anything deeper. So it was, we were for a while close. In a sense, we chatted, I'll be honest, when before Back to Black, I saw Mitch maybe twice.

After Back to Black, I saw him, after it released. I saw him, well, five, six times a week. It was, yeah, he was a lot more involved. It was just how it was. Yeah, and we had a relationship. We were friends to some extent. Obviously, it was my father-in-law. But yeah, I like the guy.

He visited me in jail. Oh, well. Yeah. And we had a dialogue. He knew I wanted Amy to be clean at that stage. You know, this is a stage where I was in jail. Amy was struggling and he was desperate, I think. You know, he's like, can you help or do anything?

Because it's something, you know, she's really suffering. And then from that point on, there was something happened where there was a massive switch that kind of got out. I don't know what happened, but something happened where he, there was no more dialogue. It was very, very entrenched. I rang him up one day. We used to call it, I used to call him quite a bit. And he was completely different, just a different person would be.

Yeah, was not kind, not nice. And I was like, you know, what's a problem? What's going on? I still don't know. We've never, we've never spoken since. We have. We spoke once since. I said to him, he said, I was in a rehab.

And he asked, he said, this is going on and on, you and I mean, what's happening? I said, I will divorce her, Mitch. If you think that's, he said, if you love her, you'd leave her because it's not, you know, together, you guys are not going to work. He said, you need to trust me and divorce her. And if it's meant to be, you'll be, you know. So I said, I will. Let's see. I said something about, you know, me being.

a shield for the past five, six years. Obviously, I don't want to keep doing that now if I'm not going to be part of it. So please try and do that for me. This is obviously, Amy was still alive. So it's a completely different mindset. I think I said something like, would you help

me, you know, with a deposit on a house or something I said, because obviously after being subject to the media I've had, I said, I'm going to really struggle. I said, and also, I haven't got much. You could help me. That would be great. of course we look after you.

I said, I'll not ask Amy for a penny. I said, you know that. He said, no, I know. But yeah, we never spoke again from that moment. Yeah. I also thought for a while that bearing in mind that I managed to get sober, to get abstinent from drugs, that he would have, you know, somehow taking a comfort from that.

I know Amy also would have, I think about that. Sometimes how Amy would be now, and I know she'd be in the same position, I am, you know, have that, it wouldn't be an entrenched, but a comfortable, you know, comfortable with herself. You're not needing to drink or to do a substance to be happy. Just being hurt, I know she would have got there. Yeah, yeah.

I know you, you want from Mitch, is the Amy's father. You want, is it that you want to have a relationship with it? Not a relationship, no, but I wouldn't. I would like it if he would acknowledge that I love Damien, that she loved me. I know he knows it, but I think it's painful still for him to say it because I think it's, you know, like I said to you, it opens up a possibility of if you can't blame that person for your daughter not being there, what does that leave you with? you know, I would say it's maybe akin to,

you've got to forgive somebody, haven't you? I'm asking him to forgive me in a sense of I wasn't responsible on Ed Forsy as a young addict into thinking what the future may hold with that. Amy died of drink, nothing to do with drugs. But still, I know that as is common, that the idea that that's my doing, my fault. I never blamed a person that gave me drugs

for the first time. I've never tried to put that on anyone. Everyman, why would I? You know, I, that was me. So I never understood, did these people think that I forced Amy to do drugs? That's just not what happened. Right, right.

The way that I read the stories is that you were the introducer and then the continual, facilitator yeah no of those drugs not true at all and then again and then some amy's worst stage of her addiction was when i was i was reminded to jail for a for a pub fight trying to stick up for my pals and um 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 so i'd say we don't need more than that that's enough and And I was like that. I think people would say, that's not true.

It was. I, when I was in jail, Amy's dealer was still very much a daily presence in Amy's life. And I knew that. And she was in photographs with Amy at times. And I know that Amy's family knew this. And I know that. Spoke about. Amy's management knew it.

So, yeah, like I say, my main. thing for that is always that case of I'm not shirking responsibility but this idea of daily facilitated no I wasn't the dealer but see so this is the part that I think we all need the clarification or not need but it would it would it would be good to get the clarification so you just said that Amy's dealer yeah is known to her family they were at the time yeah is known to her management yeah definitely known to to the company. Yeah, of course, yeah. So everyone is aware that Amy has an addiction, that you have an

addiction as well. At any point, does anyone intervene on your behalf or Amy's behalf? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely that did happen. There was an occasion where, as I said, we were naive to all the possibilities and the depths of drug addiction at that stage. We were. still in the first six months of it, so hadn't seen the misery. All we'd got told is, this is really bad, don't do it, guys. So we hadn't been at those crushing lows that you get from addiction. The old stomach cramps and self-arm. That wasn't there.

It was, dare I say, it was still like the naivety side of it. But be that as it may, as soon as it became public knowledge, that there was drugs in a relationship. We were, yeah, there was one occasion. They tried to, we were both in a rehab for a few weeks, yeah. It didn't last, it didn't stick. But that's not uncommon. I think, obviously, you know, a lot of families,

possibly the management, they quite quickly came around to the idea that get rid of me, get rid of the problem. And that obviously didn't happen. And I also would add to that, if Amy and I had been in a relationship at the time of a passing, I wouldn't, I would have been with her. What I'd have been with her?

Even when I was in jail, in Pentonville, in solitary confinement for a failing drug tests, um, of, you know, addiction. When I was in that stage, Amy and I'd spoken on the phone to her, and she said she was out drinking. She'd fallen asleep on her front doorstep.

So I rang her manager from jail and got him to go and pick her up. So even in jail, I'm not saying, I'm great, not at all. I'm just saying I still had that level of where I would be like, yo, you need to get over there, Amy's. So I still, I would have done anything. I would never, in a million years of let her just sit and get drunk all day. And this speaks to the circle and the machine, right? And I always think that how much of the team, if you will, that was around her, was focused on function over her health?

I would say that the majority of, even in a documentary, I think her manager says, from my point of view, I did the job I was expected to do. do which has put Amy on as many stages as possible. He says it wasn't my job to look after health, which I don't think is perhaps, you know, it seems strange as a sentiment, but I don't think there was a responsibility felt. As I said, there was a convenient scapegoat all along. So it was never any sense of what can we do to help this. It was Amy was still performing a few weeks before she passed away

and was clearly in trouble on some, you know, you could see an stage. I kept reading at time about the recovery of Amy, look how great she's doing, but I could see that the weight she put on seemingly was from alcohol. I could see that and I recognised that. So I thought this isn't true, it's a lie, she's not doing well. And I knew she wasn't because we were still speaking and writing.

A young woman in her 20s drank herself to death in a million pound mansion with security and family around. That's depressing, sad and, you know, tragic, isn't it? It's tragic, but it's also, I think it's a bit unforgivable from a sense of people, like you said, you asked a question of responsibility, whether it was get her on stage, let's do our job, or hang on a minute, this person doesn't look right.

I've got on stage and took Amy off, because she was struggling. I would think nothing of doing that. You know, I wasn't bothered about people that paid 40 pounds to say, I didn't care, that was my wife. And she was struggling on stage. I went and got her off stage,

so come on, this isn't working, it's just chill. So when I saw footage of her in, I think it might have been Belgrade or something. It was heartbreaking. That was heartbreaking. That was heartbreaking. But who's letting her do this? I know that seems ironic because I say

you couldn't make Amy do what she wanted. Amy told me a story that she said she'd gone to slow in a taxi and woken up in the place where she was at. She hadn't remembered anything of the plane, taxi to the airport, the plane ride, departure. Or she hadn't remembered anything if she just woke up there. It's scary. Did you and Amy ever talk about getting clean together?

All the time when we were in addiction, yeah. And after, when we'd split, I'd filed for divorce. She used to come and see me. I'd moved up to the north to Yorkshire. She'd come and see me. and see me and I just I'd had a real successful stint in rehab and I was clean and then I had I had somebody come and visit me that I'd met in the rehab that was still an addiction unfortunately

and I thought I could help them etc you know people helped to me I'm gonna help this person and obviously before I knew I was back in addiction and Amy would do it would make a point of of telling me if I need help she was there for me She said, I'll pay for rehab. Mexico, she said, well, it wasn't. I'll take her up on that. But, yeah. So we did.

We had lots of conversations in a sense of before when we were married, as in together sat there saying, let's not do this. Yeah, there were lots of times. I know there were times when it was, it was just day to day. It was just our normal. It wasn't, we didn't see ourselves as we're raging addicts. We were just, oh, Amy's got to do this today. All right.

You know, we need to take. half hour before she can do that so we can just get normal yeah to get to get normal that's interesting yeah because obviously in the drawer you're feeling a million miles away from from normal so you know let's put the the drug addiction to the side i would love to be able to take a window seat to the high life of a Blake and Amy right So the great times, not the good times, the great times, the travels, the people that you met. What to you are some of the most memorable stories? Oh, it's hard to do these memories, these memories, as it were, without sounding desperately like a name dropper, as I said to you earlier, because some of my, you got to remember I was like a normal working class, mad, you know,

It wasn't my world. I didn't know famous people. It wasn't, I wasn't, you know, I was like very much wide-eyed meeting people like, you know, Jay-Z said about Snoop. But yeah, I had a good, whoa, what was it? It was, we were in, we were in L.A. We were doing the music video for Tears Dry on their own. Okay. And then at about 4 o'clock, the director said, oh, Pami is doing a magic show in Vegas with this magician.

And she wants you guys to come. So we were like, oh, okay. And he goes, yes, she's sending a private jet. This is not my world. I've never even seen one of these things. A private jet? That was your first time on a private jet? Of course.

Yeah. And had a great flight, flew over the strip at night. Yes, the Vegas strip, yeah. And then we went to a casino and watched Pamela Anderson's magic show. And then we flew back the next day with some pals. So that type of thing for me coming from where I come from was so surreal, so strange and amazing. I didn't even know Pamela Anderson had a magic show. Oh, yeah, she was the assistant and she was fabulous.

Really? disappearing, getting chopped in half, all of that. Really? If I remember right. Wow, that's something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, now that's the story. That's the story.

It's just one. Let me know. Were there any people that... Do you want to know why I was good friends? Who? That was unexpected. I'm sure he might my hand if he sees this. Might reach out.

It might be pals again. David Schwimmer. Really? He's such a nice guy. Such a nice guy. And a genuine Amy fan. He came to see Amy. in a small pub when Amy was doing,

this is before Amy was doing big stages. So he was right on it from the, let's say from the start. I mean, he must have been a fan from Frank. He was in Camden. He was with his, he was as soon as a girlfriend at the time, I don't know my situation as well. And he was so clearly just a fan of the music. I was so happy.

And all the time, like, this is Russ from Friends. And it was so chill, so cool. We used to text each other and he had little nicknames. But we were mates. Yeah, we were mates. It's a whole other life. It really was, yeah. Were there any celebrities or politicians or, I'll just say public figures that Amy just, like, couldn't believe that she met?

Yeah. Yeah, quite a few, I guess. An obvious one would be she met Prince and she was very happy about that. But to be fair, to Ames, she could get blown away by a little kid coming up to her and saying, I love your tunes. She'd be like, oh, love you, darling. Oh, you're so pretty. You know, and like that, she'd be more engaged.

I think in terms of art, she respected those lots. But I'd say Prince was probably a big one. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that's almost as big as you get. Have you ever noticed how many of your friends are sitting on great business ideas? It's usually nothing to do with thinking their idea isn't good enough and everything to do with the execution side feeling a bit too technical. But with our show sponsor, Shopify, so much of the technical side is taking care of for you. It enables you to set up your own online store without a developer.

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When we divorced? When you divorced? Because you know, when the week Amy passed, we were still right. I was in jail, unfortunately. We were still very much talking about the possibility of reconciling again. So I would say the definitive moment I realized that wasn't going to happen was when I got told that she passed away. It's when I knew. that's not me saying, oh, if Amos alive now, we'd be together.

I'm not saying that. I have a life now. I'm in love, happy. However, I have no qualmed about saying that, that we would still be in each other's lives now. You know, I would have met her today for a lot, you know, drink or a coffee, whatever. But yeah, the final moment of like, that's,

it was never final, for me. The divorce was at the end. The arguments weren't the end. The press. her dad, none of that was strong enough to pull us apart. It was only her and I saying, nobody understands this but us. Let's see if we can show that we get clean. You do that, I'll do that, and then we'll see where we're at.

But it didn't happen. Now, in the, maybe this is the, the 2015 film, I feel like the depiction was that, because you were incarcerated, right, at this time there was a photo that that that you saw oh yes sure with with the infidelity in terms of more of yeah in terms of like the relationship side of it rather than the deeper motive side on the surface level you've got to remember that when we met she was had to think of somebody else I was jealousy wasn't wasn't where I was at in that relationship however the marriage thing for me meant it went into a different realm.

So infidelity and a marriage was ultimately for me something that I did struggle with and I would have struggled with if we would have reconciled. In fact, I did when we tried to. And I'm sorry, Blake, you're saying that infidelity is something that you would have struggled with. You're saying if... In that stage after marriage, yeah, I thought we're married,

we're not doing that anymore. There's no more infidelity. Okay. And I can perhaps Amy, I was in jail. It's not, I understand fully and completely. was a vulnerable addict. There were people out there selling stories on the left, right and center at the time.

I think she was desperately lonely, desperately sad. I'm not, you know, I'm not kind of pedestal in it. I'm saying, I know addiction, and I know that Amy's heart was always with me at that stage. Okay. You know, I know that, and I knew that. And she'd tell me that. I just knew it was the situation,

but I still couldn't, it wasn't something I could abide in the sense. And so you first, did you first see the images of her on a beach with someone? Yeah. And then you two must have corresponded with each other. And then she told you what happened. Told me what happened. I, yeah, obviously very upset, et cetera. Then we worked on things, kept chatting, kept writing.

But ultimately, it was just too much. And I felt a clean start as well would have been a really good thing. to do in a sense we actually spoke when i first moved up to yorkshire after i got out of a rehab up there we spoke about getting married again yeah which probably gave a dad nightmares but yeah that was that was where we were at you know still still very much yet we're going to do this she came to see me at christmas from christmas together i mean there's a lot of times amy and i were always you know there's never any time where it was like we didn't like each other or we we we we're hated each other or we weren't speaking even right up into a pasting.

Yes, yes. At what point did you, because I know there's been a lot made of this, so this gives you an opportunity to clarify this, is that, so you come out of prison and this is the quote, you probably know what quote I'm going to give is, I'm a big man, I'm handsome. Do I say? I go to the gym, I dress well, what am I doing wasting my time? in a sense of being publicly cheated on it. It's probably that's my ego speaking, isn't it?

Okay. So that's exactly... That seems quite obvious to me. I don't remember that quote. It seems like something silly I would have said to try and make myself feel aware. To just... Yeah.

Because I already thought, oh, it's humiliating. Yes. How can I somehow act like I'm okay with it? Right. Right. I'm sorry that was. Yeah. No, and which is exactly what I thought that was.

Because that is a statement that is someone trying to puff up artificially inflate. Oh, completely artificial. I've never once thought any of those things about me. But yeah, if you say something, you know, it's halfway to sort of believe in that, I guess, in that saying, you know, like, I'm okay. You know, look, I'm fine. I'm not, I'm not humiliated.

It's her loss type of shape. Right, right. I'm going to be fine. Yeah. And so this was. Totally fine. Tears, rather than... A lot of type of fine.

Yes, yes. So it was after that point where, I think you probably went to Yorkshire. Yeah. And then she comes and she visits you. That's right. You're both talking about reconciling. Reconciling. And then bit by bit, I sit back into addiction more truly.

Okay. And from that point on, it was more a case of get better now rather than me and you, it was, you know, I was going from the stage where we've been at before, which was nothing innocent about drug use, but was more a naive smoking of drugs became injecting of drugs. Ah, okay. So that was something that couldn't be around her and wasn't for her and didn't, she had, just never, I was never going to let that be something she'd see me doing and she wouldn't and didn't. it was yeah so I'd gone to that level of it what do you think drove you to that point because I recall

earlier in the conversation you mentioned you never thought you would inject yeah that's right by the time I was in Yorkshire I had been in a rehab with people that were more it was a community rehab so it wasn't a private one it wasn't it wasn't a facility that was for well-off people, it was genuine addicts. You know, and all that brought with it, I felt like a fake in there. I felt like, you know, these guys had had these really, really hard stories to drugs

and I was somebody that had just experimented with and ended up falling into a bit of a daily addiction for a few months. And then I've been incarcerated after those few months. Yes. I've never been putting a rehab above it. So I felt like I hadn't even, I hadn't even been at that stage a hardcore heroin user. Yes.

Which is what I then became by my associations I made it at that rehab. That's, yeah, on me, fully on me. But yeah. Was that the last time that you saw Amy? No, no. When was the last time you two saw each other? I went to see, she had a lovely flat. or house in Marlabon.

I went to see her maybe, I want to say about five months, six months before she passed away, maybe five months. Yeah, it was the last time I saw her. Okay, okay. Could, are you open to sharing with that moment? We were like things we always were. We were, you know, we were as intimate as we had been. We were still, it was just, we just met each other.

We hadn't seen her at this stage for a while. I was in addiction, struggling. And I met her for a couple of hours. We had a really nice time, really nice chat. And it was a case of, you know, I have to go now. It wasn't, you know, let's stay together. Let's get you, let's get you right as it didn't need to be. It was a case of, you know, we'll see soon.

Okay. And I'll be better next time, you know? Okay, okay. And so shortly thereafter, you were incarcerated again. Again. Okay. It was, yeah, housebreaking and just steamed really, really scummy, disgusting, shameful things. I'm not, I don't ever try and hide that side of me.

My family, the people that love me know that. I've got no, I couldn't hide any legs. It's all out there. But I struggle to reconcile how low I really got through addiction. I don't try and pass it off. I don't say, hey, that was an addict, it wasn't me. It was me. But I know the person I am, the person I was raised to be,

I would never have been in that situation. I can say that and or not. I might have done lots of silly things, but that level of stealing other people breaking into a house. I would have been distraught if someone did. that to me. Yes. Yes. Like I, it was just a real low. But obviously for me, by that time, I was a complete, you know, I was about 55 kilos. Yeah, on like six foot and a half. And I was 55 kilos at my waist. Like a 26 inch waist. Goodness. Goodness. Really, really,

really boring. Yes. I was in a coma through my addiction. I was a couple of comas. lost organs. So yeah, yeah, real, real misery of addiction. And then just before I got told that Amy had passed away, the last letter that I received was Amy, which the same as we'd always said, you know, nicknames, silliness, jokes, and she said, me and you, let's really, really give up a guy as friends, yeah?

And I said, let's do it. We're always be friends. but it's in a sense because for a few weeks earlier we've been saying shall we, should we get back together she'd said, oh, wants to come and see you, shall we? So we tentatively talks about it

and then we just, well she decided she decided, you know what? Yeah, cool it. So I was like, okay, that's cool and then she always never got like that. This is so interesting. So the last letter you received Amy said, got stolen from me in jail.

Oh, did? Yeah, it's disgusting, I don't know. Even in jail, there's, you have hierarchies, people that steal from people's sales, their possessions, that's like low. I mean, it's not the lowest of the low in jail, but it's down there. Yeah. And I got my letter stolen. I should have anticipated it. But yeah, devastated.

I don't have that still. That letter. You received it, but you wrote her back. But you're saying she didn't receive it. I can't imagine so, no. because I think I remember that week I remember that I'd we'd spoken on a Monday or a Wednesday and then I was saving my pin phone credits caller on the weekend because it was weekend rates so it'd last a bit longer so instead of a minute you might get two minutes you know so as I got

to save it till Saturday morning went to ring on to say you know hi what you're out to I got your letter did you I've written your one back and no answer no answer when I tried to get in any afternoon and then after about I can't remember what time maybe four five six o'clock and even some prison officers came to my door and told me what had happened do you remember so you remember that moment exactly are you open to to sharing what happened yeah I can yeah I've I was I was in my cell took me down to an office told me showed me a news headline because I said it's it'll be a hoax just straight where I say, oh, it's not true, don't worry.

When I was in jail for the first time, I'm not a religious person, but I used to pray every night. I'd say, please let Amy stay alive until I get out. Because I had this massive fear, like an absolute control fear, something's going to happen to her if I'm not, not if I'm not about.

Someone's going to happen to when I'm in here, and I'm not able to do anything or help or even be there. I just always have said, please keep Amy alive until I get out. Yeah, so when they told me that, my first of all was, this is my worst nightmare, it's not true. So my brain was grasping it, it'll be a hoax, you know, these things happened. Right.

And then they showed me a BBC link and obviously I was more, yeah, I was more conscious at that point that this had happened, but my head was swimming straight away. and I just yeah obviously I held it together you can't be crying walking down the wings in a jail I had to wait until I got into my cell my cell mate at the time was a really solid guy he'd seen it on the news and gave me a hug straight while I burst into tears and he started crying to so it's strange I'd this got held up by you know as in supported and held up by by somebody I'd known for a matter of weeks

that was the only comfort I had at that moment, right? For losing a massive, huge part of my life, right? A big part of my heart. Somebody I was not going to see again or hear again or anything again. It was too much. Had you had anyone in your life up until that point who had cared and loved for you more than the name?

No way. That was, if you'd say to me, why, what was it about Amy that I liked, aside from the obvious things, it was that she used to big me up in a way that we used to, like a hype person, you know, like something, not hyping, so that hype sounds kind of like a bit false and like a bit, you know, fake. She would be my biggest cheerleader. That's better. She'd be like, oh, that's a great idea, darling, do that. Yeah, let's try this. She just thought I was someone. She really feel like someone.

My life up to that point, I was, you know, I spent years or a couple of years of being homeless in London when I was younger, teenager, or the misery that entails. So by the time, Amy and I met, I had, you know, yeah, that wasn't my life. I didn't have people that said to me, you're cool, you're a nice person. And she believed it and she made me feel like it. And with her, I felt like it. I know that the person I am now, because I look like I'm a different person to my 20s,

I would say I wasn't even fully grown and fully mature until my late 30s, adding to that an arrested development of drug use, which kind of keeps you in that moment. You're not having, as I said, you're about heroin being a shield for me, you know, protection. That also stopped things hurting me. you know, I felt like in a sense of something bad happens or something says something bad about you with heroin you're like oh that's okay but I

wasn't growing from these experiences I was just hiding from them so there was no emotional growth there was no evaluation there was no there was no rehabilitation it was it was you know yeah but Amy was was that person you're right that did make me feel I was I was worth something Yeah. Yeah. And for my part for her, if I could add to that, she knew that I was genuine. She knew that I loved her and she knew that the bad thoughts about me, the thing like, I might

chat up and have a bird, you know, when we first met or, you know, I gamble a bit or might like a bit of coke. She was like, that doesn't define him. She's like, I know him. And she knew that that person would look after her as much as I could, which might not have been enough and wasn't enough. But she knew I, you know, I wasn't there for any other reason. I wasn't trying to manipulate or try to lie or cheat or take from her. I just wanted to be with her and enjoy it with her.

I don't want to try and take away from her. Like, I'm here too. I don't care about any of that. You know, we'd walk on the red carpet and they'd say, just Amy. Probably like, yeah, all right. You know, just be funny. Well, obviously. No.

Right, right. But you're trying to push your way through it to. Yeah. No, or like, I didn't, like I said, your money's not ever been my, my God. So I wasn't ever like, oh, she earns so much more than me. This wasn't one of those. It was like, oh, you get in dinner?

Oh, right, yeah. Just like you would have been your mate. You're nice at the minute, aren't you? So you can get dinner. It's right thing. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. place the chaplaincy team armly arranged for a Jewish person of faith a rabbi to come in and tell me what the funeral would be like and yeah he did he read out the passages that would be said and told me you know the lines that it was saying and said the stage that it would be out and how they and conduct those rights so there was there was comfort there but it's quite something to be not only to lose a part of yourself, your best mate, let's say, someone you loved and was still intensely close to. Lose that person, be blamed for it.

Mourning alone in jail, ostracized in the presses and like, it's his fault. The whole thing just fed into my whole thing of addiction again and using and I'm worthless. Everything's on me. It took me a long time to get out of that and to give my hair. of that and to give my head a real good shake to look at myself and I'm never ever here to say hey Amy was bad you know not at all but I know Amy wouldn't want me to still be sat here 20 years later saying it was all my fault she'd be saying get it right babe come on telling the truth you know we were we were just young addicts at the time we weren't start with then we were

and it could happen to anyone right right I mean this has happened and it has I mean this brings up what I feel is a constant question of who's responsible. Yeah, right. And I mean, I have lots of ideas. And even I question, is that even the question? But how do you respond to that? Because this is the constant question. The fingers continually, to this point, 15 years after her passing,

the finger is still pointed at you. I still have, yeah, I still have, you know, all the trappings of that blame put on me in the sense of the media I'll still be treated as that person I'll still they still try and insinuate I'm an addiction not I wouldn't be here but was by the way I couldn't hide it yeah right um responsibility has to lie at some case with the people around her at the time when Amy did pass away the people that were in and out of a daily life that saw her bearing in mind I'd not spoke I

I'd spoken to Amy, I'd not seen her for some time and it had only been brief for a couple of hours. She was in a new relationship. I didn't know what I was expected to do. The response, but that's not me saying it's, it's, they, they're, they're, I'm just saying, everyone needs to say, yeah, I could have maybe looked out for that or I wish with all my heart, I would have realized that was a problem, etc. But also Amy has agency as well and that's important and that's a really hard thing to say when somebody's not here but again I truly believe in my heart of facts that Amy would have the same attitude as I am you know I've got broad enough shoulders now I can I can take it I was an addict as well I don't think

Amy ever did a story like that or even a piece admitting it it was always just said and it was always just my fault that was it there was no no other deeper kind of investigation and Amy chose to drink that day unfortunately the disease was there of addiction, but as far as I'm aware, nobody would have made her do that. The idea, along for the past 15 years, has been that, has been somebody's responsible, as in almost in a sense of causing death. That that would be the furthest thing from anyone's intentions. If, you know, it didn't even make sense on a logical kind of stompbell.

Like, if I was trying to, I don't know, do something manipulative and try and get this person to pay for, my drugs forever, the very last thing I'd want is for them to be, to not be around. I mean, the fact is I was in jail for housebreaking, so I wasn't phoning, a baby asking for me. I know it's not, I'm not saying, hey, look, I'm a nice guy, because I'm just saying people have always got this very, very skewed idea of how actually things went down. I am such a good and easy, bad guy in it. And like I said, I won't deny my mistakes.

and that Miri had lots but now sitting here with you I truly don't I know I'm not responsible for any of his passing I'm not

and it's the very last thing I would have ever wanted and I know no matter what whoever Avery's family would also agree that I'd imagine that they know that's not what I'd want

this would be the very last thing I'd ever ever want for anything to happen to Aving just a heads up this next part of the conversation includes eating disorders. Please watch with care. One thing we haven't talked about

that I believe in the reports after Amy's passing that was a factor was her current level of health. Yeah. And bulimia played a role in that. When was the first time

that you realized that she suffered from bulimia? I saw it for the first time when we were out for a meal. And it was terrifying for me because it was something I had no understanding on. I didn't know how to deal with it. I used to get upset or frustrated. I'd be like, you don't have to go and make yourself sick now. We're just eating a nice meal.

Then she'd say, well, you know, she'd be back in a minute to go into the toilet and make herself sick. As far as I'm aware, she didn't ever receive any treatment. for an eating disorder. And everyone in the circle was aware of the bulimia. Yeah. They were all aware. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's about as close as I can get to understand. You when you love somebody and they're suffering from something that you have no understanding of, you really can't fathom it what they get out of it. And that must have been how not only Amy's parents, my parents, people that loved me, that they would have felt with me. You know, my mom used to say, why don't you stop?

you just stopped doing it. I was really not, it's not that simple. You cannot. You cannot. This is what Amy's brother, Alex, I said with regards to her bulimia. He said, Amy suffered from bulimia very badly. That's not like a revelation you knew just by looking at her. She would have died eventually the way she was going, but what really killed her was the bulimia.

I think that it left her weaker and more susceptible. Yeah. So that's what her brother Alex mentioned. I mean, obviously, massive amounts of alcohol is what caused her passing. It was alcohol toxicity, I believe. Yes. She was small, tiny and we'd drink too much vodka. But I definitely understand what Alex is saying.

I imagine, you know, well I know that she was, you know, getting medication, you know, diasopan and stuff like that. Yes. But I imagine that mixed with the alcohol she would have drank, mixed with seven, eight years of constant bulimia, yeah, she, um, she was, she was poorly. Yes. She was poorly. She wasn't in recovery.

She wasn't fixed. She wasn't happy. She was poorly still. She was. I, um, it, it, to me, when, when I read more and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and do the research, it blows me away how prolific bulimia is with illicit drug use. Yeah. So here's some stats.

Up to 35% of alcohol or illicit drug abusers have an eating disorder. Yeah. Up to 35% percent. compared to only 3% of the general population. 10 times more. And bulimia has one of the highest mortality rates of any mental health condition. Yeah, I can believe that I think with Amy's case, it wasn't from, as far as I'm away, she never said it to me that it was, it wasn't a lifelong condition.

It was something that for my money, she didn't do it when we first met. it had it was something that came about not to put everything on the press but these reports are you seeing that you're fat or seeing that you're overweight or wanting to be like everyone else she wasn't either of those things but I'm saying this was the kind of this was a definite kind of narrative that I remember reading there was one time as well I remember and it was quite a good magazine I can't remember which magazine it was they had the most unsexy celebrities. Yeah, which is just already like, you wouldn't see that now, would you so much? Maybe on some clickbait page, but it was an article. I can't remember what magazine,

I don't want to say which one it was in case it's a wrong one. And I remember that Amy was number two on this list. And I thought, if she saw that, even though she's brave and bullshit, that was, that's gonna I don't hurt anyone's feelings and who the fuck are these people? Right.

Don't know. Don't know as saying that she's unsexy. But how is that even? Yeah. And I know it sounds like you think it can't have been like that, yeah, or Blake's talking bullocks. No, this happened. Yeah.

The level of negative press, or should I say the- Amy was referred to as Amy DeKlein House. That was a common, common nickname. Amy DeKinehouse and Blake not so civil. This is some really amusing journalists, and that's his legacy, you know. Right, right. Yeah, the level of nastiness in the press, it was another level, should I say, to another degree. Yeah, it was.

Especially at that time. And what I didn't realize, though, was that connection between the press calling her over weight essentially or acne amy was on the cover magazine with you know just like bad skin all of that stuff is going to know there's not it's not even it's not even hard to see how you're reading that and you think you're going to feel bad about yourself right i'm sure it still happens now to some degree to celebrities or to to to to to in fact it course it does but but yeah to have your weight your face your you're who you are attached your hair you everything pulled apart in a way that was fairly acceptable back then.

It was, and you know what blew me away is how even in a lot of these, so the talk shows, the nightly shows, how in an opening monologue, there would just be an open, Jimmy Winehouse joke about her. What was it? When you say a joke about her, a joke laughing at Amy being an addiction or being a mess. Yes. That's what it was. This was a source of entertainment for people.

But then obviously when somebody dies, they want to be very respectful about this. But you think, well, no, you were the guys that were saying, you know, this, that, and the other for years with glee. Yes. And making these narratives and pushing it. You weren't saying, hey, these two kids might need a bit of help. It was, you know, here we go, we've got a story, yeah.

Amy would have only had that same reaction. And we'd all, we'd, we'd fine, not bothered. But you take that inside, don't you? And you're bothered. And she's bothered. Who wouldn't be? Right. A comedian, you like making a horrible joke about you looking like, you know, looking like a horse or some shit.

You know, you think, what the fuck are you? Right. But you can't, you're going to be like, good one. Right. And I would imagine that's one of the reasons why you haven't done any interviews. Yeah. That's the reason why over the last few years you've been quiet. door free yeah yeah that's it yeah and and again it's not me seeking these things out

with all due respect you know people ask me and nine times out of ten I'll say no no but you know my guy he said you know to come chat with you is it and it seemed like this would be so different to how it was when I was famous or infamous 20 years ago so different this yes yes I can imagine. If this would have been around 10 years ago, me and Amy would have been on every week. It would be sorted. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, you know, I think that there's also, because, you know, you're thinking about responsibility, right, when I asked about the responsibility. The one category that we didn't, or one of the categories we didn't talk about, is us, the public. You know, those paparazzi are able to be there and sell those photos to news agencies because we're buying it. We're reading it and we're devouring that information. And I think that equally, you know, if we're all taking responsibility for the passing of one of the greatest artists, arguably, to ever live.

No, no people's perspectives are. Amy could have done loads more things. There's no telling. Oh, there's, you know, this is why it gets to the 27 Club. Did she ever or did you ever have any conversation about this twice? We had one brief conversation about it once. Yeah, I can't I can't recall the actual specifics of it. But we had one conversation and I think it was me saying to as in when I was in jail doing my praying, please stay alive.

We had some quite a lot of in-depth conversations around that time because obviously I wasn't in daily addiction. I was still using drugs in jail. but it wasn't every time I wanted, it might be once a week or twice a week. I hate talking about stuff like that. But yeah, that's where I was. So I was like on that very first tentative step towards being sober.

It would have been in a sense of, you know, her saying, don't be silly. That's not going to be me. And Amy said that. Yeah. I know she said that. I don't know how we got to that where she was like, she would be laughing, dismissing it.

Don't be stupid. No, I'd be like, oh, make sure you don't please, because 27's a big number. My brother passed away at 27 as well. Did you roll the wheels away? At 27? Yes.

Yeah. So, yeah, that 27, I don't even like, using like a club. It just seems disrespectful to me, obviously because I've got a personal investment in that person. So I don't agree with this

branding of the 20s. 27 club like it's some, you know. Something to aspire to. Like a rock and roll kind of thing, yeah. I'm with you, you're right. It wasn't until that moment that it resonated with me. But for everyone who's unaware of what this idea means, it's musicians who have passed away at 27,

including Brian Jones, Jimmy Hendricks, Janice Joplin, Kurt Cobain, obviously, Amy. And in the past 100 years have been over, 50 famous musicians have all passed away at this age. And so it's profound. I didn't realize that it's a discussion that you and Amy had. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, it just means that there's a pattern. And the pattern is that younger people, because 27's no age, is it really? Not where I'm sat now and, you know, it's not. you've certainly not lived your life. That people with fame and money and, you know, perhaps people that have carried the elements of their genius, like in a sense of Cabain or all of them, like Jais and Jimmy,

like they were so tortured, so intelligent, so genius that they were too much, you know, and it's kind of, it puts that rock and roll spin on it, where in actual fact, it would have been just the same as Amy's and my life. It would have been misery, it would have been enslavement to a substance, it would have been a daily grind. You know, I wish with all my heart that Amy was still there and we, you know, and that wasn't a thing that she would be associated with, in a way,

that 27 club, like, Yeah. Just feel like it kind of in a way demeans it's like the, like it's like, oh, it's this rock and roll club. It's what these young musicians do. But they shouldn't, should that? People shouldn't be drinking and themselves to death in their 20s. No, no.

It's nothing to aspire to. No, exactly that. Yeah. Talking about legacy. Yeah. What do you believe Amy Winehouse? his legacy is and will be her legacy is obviously amazing songs there's no you know that that's it's not the full stop as far as i'm concerned but the people you know gen z's now that that

listen to amy it will i think it will have a i think it will resonate for generations i don't see why it wouldn't i think people will still be listening to her in 20 30 40 50 years um I think she'll be somebody that will be remembered through history as an amazing, talented singer, but one that wrote honest, genuine lyrics at a time when perhaps it was more expected for artists be pop artists and to let people write their songs and to conform. I think in many ways she wouldn't want to think, oh, I was the first person to do that, but she definitely helped with other artists, you know, to write their own songs rather than, you know, this person's going to write that track for you, you just perform it.

She definitely made it where labels were more willing to listen to real songs. Yes. Yeah. Like Adele and like Lily does now and you know like just who you are rather than, no, just some poppy part that you just like listen to on the radio. Amy's songs were real deal, weren't they? They were poems with good music. Yes. You know what I love so much about Amy's music.

Yeah. is it's timeless. You know how you listen to some music and you can place it in a certain time period? Yeah, of course, yeah. You could put on any one of these songs from back to black. Yeah.

Even Frank, right? Even that album. Yeah. And you cannot assign a period of time. No. To it. Yeah, no, you're right. She was, she was, and I think there might have been,

you know, some different directions from her with music because she might have gone down some different routes. It might have not been the girl group thing. It might have been, she was, you know, she went from jazz to the Motown thing. She might have gone somewhere else, who knows. You think she would have done a hip-hop album? I think she would have loved that very much, yeah.

Really? Yeah. She was very good friends with Nas. Obviously, she loved Nas. Yeah, and they did work together, didn't they? They worked together on some cool tunes, actually. But, yeah, I think that would have been very cool. Not rapping.

Yeah, yeah, but yeah, but she would have been, you know, she would have been on the album, all the album. If Amy could hear you now, what would you want her to hear from you? That I'm doing well, that I'm happy, that would mean everything to her, that I'm clean. I'm a happy person now. I know that sounds, perhaps,

I don't mean that to sound dismissing of things. I mean, I have worked hard to get to this. Yes. I've worked hard to it, And I cannot live in the past. I cannot live in the comments. I cannot. That's different side.

I have to be me. I have to be sober, clean, happy. And that would make Amy be on. She'd be over the moon. Yes. I believe that. Well, she'll still be around me every now and then, like I have a day or two when I'm thinking,

oh, I really miss Amy. And then she'll come on the radio on the car. So it's kind of, I know it sounds perhaps a bit hallmarky, but sometimes that you could think she's still there. Yes, yes. What's the next chapter? Yeah, exactly. For Mr. Blake, what is the next chapter for you? I've got too many things in my life now, which mean too much to me to ever relapse, to ever go back.

I couldn't fathom what that would do to my family, the people I love, the people I live with, what that would do to them. So addiction, it took years, but I still get the odd thought of drugs, believe it or not, as depressing as that is, and I'm sure a lot of addicts would concur. It'll be every now and then I'll watch a film

and I'll get an intrusive thought of her. But by and large, my life now, is is wanting to wanting to be the person I always wanted to be which is in a happy relationship being being clean and feeling valued for who I am which you know I'm never had and so lamey showed me what it was like yes and I also want to try and reach out and help some people okay through addiction okay Okay. What's been illuminated for me in this conversation is that, you know, you've always wanted to be seen. You've wanted to be loved. You've wanted to be cared for. As does everyone. We all want to be affirmed. And you lived for almost the entirety of your adolescence life through. to your young adult life, not having felt that.

And so at that point, you become a self-soother. You try to be a self-regulator. And if you're not equipped with those skills, you go out and you get the things to help you soothe and you get the things to help you regulate. And that's what you did. Also, what I know, which is clear, is Amy loved you. And she did. she held space for you all the way through to the end.

Yeah. And we have to realize that, as you've said, and many people have said, is she didn't do what she didn't want to do. No, she did. No. You know, she did only what she wanted to do. And she wanted you in her life. And that means, you know, I think that that means a lot to me that that was a

considered decision, you know, that she made, you know. So I've, I mean, I've been so intrigued to to want to sit with you, you know, and I'm, you know, I'm team Blake, man. But now, now is the, the moment for you to give yourself grace. Now is the moment to do what Amy's always wanted you to do. And that is, is to live your life to the fullest. To love, to allow yourself to to be loved. Yeah. You know, and to your point to help as many people as possible. Yeah.

This is it. You know, this is it. There is a final question that everyone gets. You ready for it? Yeah. Is it the same question for everyone? The same question for everyone. All right, okay.

This question is, if you think through all of the conversations you've had throughout your life, yeah. Which one stands out to you as the most memorable? So who was it with? And what did you learn? Hmm. Let me think about this. You see, I've had some real, as I said, humbling moments in my life.

And I think when I first met people in recovery who basically told me a similar version And what you said is in to allow yourself a bit of grace there. The minute I started to be able to allow responsibility to be there, but to also live with myself so that I wasn't feeding back into that, we'd probably be the most important conversation in my life. So with some of my very best friends that I've met in rehabs.

Okay. Some of the people that I've been with, some people that had nothing, and were the most desperately sad people you could imagine in terms of their life and what they'd been through. People that I was sat talking to them in groups and I was trying to say about my problems

and you realize sometimes that so those types of things were always good for me to understand. Yes. My putting my hands up and taking responsibility brought me to where I can now put my hands up and say, I'm okay with myself. I know what I'm about and I know that you said,

I'm worth being clean. I'm worth being sober. Yes. And I'm happy being clean and sober. Yes. Yes, it looks good on you. Thank you so much. Yeah, it looks good on you.

Thank you. Yeah. So that was heavy. Since day one, I've been a fan of Amy Winehouse when I heard about her. But I wasn't necessarily in tuned with her personal life. Before the research, if you were just to survey me and ask me, what's my opinion on Blake, I would have probably said negative.

But after sitting with him, my heart goes out to him. You know, Blake is someone who has gone through hell. And I think that when people hear that the immediate response may be, but what about Amy? but I think that we have to look at each person individually. And if I just look at his life, because this is his life, he's going through hell. And at what point do we give him grace? I think what this conversation allowed Blake to do was to specifically clarify how he felt towards Amy and his love. Love frame.

My rock bottom in the backstreet place, I was drinking on stage. So I was ready to go. The minute I walked off stage, like, straight to the bar. Back streets, back, all right. Like, I just loved the crowd. I'll never forget. They had shut down Times Square for about six blocks, a sea of people. Psychologically, truly, like, how does that impact you?

God. Was it Lou Perlman? Lou was the entrepreneur that put this whole thing together, but we didn't really. read the fine print. Boyband promoter turned federal prisoner. The program had sentenced to day for the chronic banks and investors have a bunch of $300 million.

We wanted to simply to ask one word, one question. Why? But I flew home, smelled like a bar, hadn't slept, went to get my youngest to hug. And she's like, you don't smell like my dad. Alex is who I've always been. AJ is a character in a band. It's nice to know that now each of us really truly has a voice to speak up.

And of course, we've had our moments where it gets physical or it's a full streaming match. You all have fought physically. Yeah. Let's talk about it. Olivia Rodriguez, the unraveled tour across North America with special guests. Get tickets Thursday, May 7th at Olivia Rodrigo.com. Not loving your AT&T or T mobile bill? Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot.

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