Amy Winehouse’s close friend Tyler James says the singer was “close to being healthy” when she died of accidental alcohol poisoning in the home they shared.
“I want people to please, please recognize how hard she had worked to come off drugs and just how close she was to [giving up alcohol] for good,” he told The Times.
The singer died 10 years ago next month at 27. “I can picture her, where she would be right now in life,” said James, “and it wouldn’t have anything to do with being f**king famous.”
He said Winehouse’s sudden fame made overcoming her addictions more challenging.
“Amy was a girl in her twenties suffering from addiction, and everybody was a part of it. Everybody was watching it,” James said. “When you go to rehab, you have to be the strongest you’ve ever been in your life, when you are the weakest you’ve ever been in your life. And she had to go through that in front of people.
“I want people to understand how hard that was for her. I want people to know what it was, to stop seeing her as this doomed person.”
In My Amy: The Life We Shared, James recalls Winehouse’s struggle with life in the spotlight.
“I wanted to tell what it was like for her, having to actually live in that world. With that level of fame, that level of intrusion, that lack of privacy,” he explained. “I don’t think people really realize the effect that has on a person. She craved normality. The biggest thing that f**ked Amy up was being famous.”
In the book, James tells of a time he and Winehouse – both using drugs – went to stay at the home of Canadian singer Bryan Adams on Mustique. “For the first time in a long time it felt like there was an adult around,” James wrote of Adams. “Someone who recognized we were kids. And we were f**ked up.”