With the release of new biopic Back to Black the world is once again remembering British vocal legend Amy Winehouse. Marisa Abela’s performance as Winehouse is dividing critics right down the middle, just as the subject herself did while she was alive.
We’re now coming up to the thirteenth anniversary of her untimely death, so let’s take a look back and go over the sad circumstances of how she died.
Amy Winehouse’s death
The closest eyewitness to her death was Andrew Morris, a live-in bodyguard who began minding her on July 20, 2011. At the time Winehouse was living in Camden, London, and was known for her chaotic partying lifestyle. According to the bodyguard she’d spent the three days before her death in various states of intoxication, and on the day she died had stayed up late “laughing, listening to music and watching TV at 2 a.m.”
At 10 am on July 23 2011, Morris checked on her and found her lying in bed. He tried to wake her up but couldn’t, concluding she was simply sleeping off the previous night’s drinking. He returned at 3 pm that day and found her in the same position, causing him to check more closely. He discovered she had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. He called an ambulance, which arrived at 3.54 pm. The paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene soon afterward.
A forensic investigation into her death began immediately. Three bottles of vodka (two large, one small) were found in her bedroom and a toxicology report found that her blood alcohol content was 416 mg per 100 ml, or five times the drink-drive limit. The coroner concluded that excessive alcohol consumption resulted in a “sudden and unexpected death”.
In January 2012 another inquest into Winehouse’s death was held, confirming the original findings of death resulting from “alcohol toxicity” to a level “commonly associated with fatality”.
This later inquest also took evidence from Winehouse’s GP (family doctor) Dr Christina Romete, who saw her the night before she died. As she reported, “she specifically said she did not want to die” but “she was genuinely unwilling to follow the advice of doctors, being someone who wanted to do things her own way.”
Amy Winehouse’s grave
Winehouse’s funeral took place on July 26 2011 at Edgwarebury Lane Cemetery in North London. Following this she was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and her ashes were buried alongside those of her grandmother Cynthia Levy at Edgwarebury Lane Cemetery at plot U3.