Amy Winehouse’s ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil has said that he can no longer bear the sole “burden” for her death, on what would have been her 40th birthday.
Winehouse met production assistant Fielder-Civil in a pub in 2005, with the pair dating on and off. They married in 2007, but both parties were in the throws of drug addiction ad the relationship was at times violent.
The “Rehab” singer said that their “whole marriage was based on doing drugs” and the couple divorced in 2009 while continuing an on-off relationship. She died in July 2011 of alcohol poisoning, aged 27.
Winehouse would have turned 40 on Thursday (14 September). To mark the occasion, Fielder-Civil appeared on Good Morning Britain to discuss his relationship with the late artist, as well as his belief that people still hold him “responsible” for her death.
“Yeah. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to speak today,” he replied. “Yeah, I do. I do. And that’s OK. I can’t change how other people feel about that.
“But for me personally, I’ve needed to stop carrying that cross on my own. I’ve carried that burden myself for over 10 years. I feel, to be honest, that I’m the only person within that story that’s ever held any accountability, that’s ever tried to say, ‘Yep, I made some huge mistakes.’”
Asked to expand on those “mistakes”, Fielder-Civil, 41, replied: “I was a twenty-something-year-old drug addict. So I had absolutely no idea how to make myself clean, let alone somebody else who was a big cog in a machine for a record label, and there were vested interests in Amy carrying on performing.”
Host Ben Shephard added: “And she was very vulnerable, as we know. She was such a fragile soul, wasn’t she?”
Fielder-Civil on ‘Good Morning Britain'— (ITV)
Nodding, Fielder-Civil replied: “Yeah, she was. I think that fragility there is what people connected with in the albums and the song-writing.”
Fielder-Civil now has two children, and told Piers Morgan in a 2018 interview that while he would “always carry a burden of guilt” for Winehouse’s death, “Amy didn’t do anything Amy didn’t want to do”.
Shortly after the pair married in Miami, Florida, in 2007, Winehouse allegedly tried crack cocaine and heroin for the first time. According to her friends and family, this was a turning point in the singer’s behaviour and public image.
Fielder-Civil and Winehouse in 2007— (Getty Images)
When they divorced in 2009, Fielder-Civil claimed it was to “set her free” from the unrelenting tabloid attention.
The pair continued an on-off relationship and reportedly planned to remarry. However, Fielder-Civil was jailed for burglary and possession of a firearm.
He was behind bars when Winehouse died, and was banned from attending her funeral by her family who blamed him for introducing her to heroin and enabling her drug use.
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