Well this is just heartbreaking: In an interview airing today with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Amy Winehouse’s father contends that she was tackling her addictions so fiercely that her body went into shock from withdrawal, resulting in a seizure that ultimately killed her.
“Everything Amy did, she did to excess,” Mitch Winehouse told Cooper. “She drank to excess and did detox to excess.”
Reports the Guardian:
Almost two months after she was found in her north London home, the cause of Amy’s death has still not been identified. While a toxicology report showed there were no illegal substances in the singer’s system, Mitch told CNN there were traces of Librium, a prescription drug used to fight anxiety and alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Some alcohol was also found in her bloodstream.
This was part of a pattern Mitch said he had seen before. Although he insists his daughter quit hard drugs in December 2008, alcohol was still a problem. “The periods of abstinence were becoming longer, and the periods of drinking were becoming shorter,” he said. “It was heading in the right direction.” Withdrawal caused seizures, Mitch said, and he believes one of these seizures killed her on 23 July. “There was nobody there to rescue her.”
In other Amy Winehouse news, the last song she ever recorded — a duet with her musical hero Tony Bennett titled “Body and Soul” — will be released this Wednesday, the day that would have been her 28th birthday. The song was recorded in March at Abbey Road Studios in London for Bennett’s upcoming Duets II album. A video of the two performing the song together in the studio will also be released onto the web. Expect to see it here.
In the meantime, here’s a teaser Sony Music released a few days ago, and frankly it sounds beautiful…
