Well, Another Piece Of The Amy Winehouse Puzzle Just Fell Into Place
Dad Mitch says that he believes his affair while he was still married to Amy’s mother is part of the reason why she’s so screwed up today:
Mitch Winehouse, 57, reveals in a new interview with the BBC that soon after Amy’s birth in 1983, he began cheating on wife Janis with a co-worker, Jane, who became his second wife in 1996. Amy and her brother Alex (born in 1980) knew about the long-running affair.
“The children used to call Jane ‘Daddy’s work wife,’ ” Winehouse says on the program One Life: Rock Star Parents, to be aired next week.
He said he should have left the marriage sooner, and when he finally did Amy “definitely became a lot more independent. … I thought Amy was over [the affair] pretty quickly – in fact it felt at the time Amy felt no effect at all. Maybe she could not articulate it in words, but she certainly did it with music.”
He says her angry song, “What It Is About Men,” refers to his behavior.
“It is easy for me to say it is my fault, and that had I been a better parent this would not have happened. But who knows whether it would or not?” he says.
Well, yeah…you never quite know if something like this is going to negatively affect your children, but it’s a pretty safe bet to say that the behavior of the parents does affect the emotional makeup of the children. It sounds to me like Mitch is still trying to excuse his behavior. So, let’s recap…he carried on an affair for quite a long time, let’s assume a decade, and when he finally divorced his wife he didn’t expect that to have an impact on an obviously artistic girl poised on the brink of adolescence?
But then again…it does seem that he is attempting to make things right with Amy. He has tried again and again to get her into rehab programs (although he, and the rest of the family, have been conspicuously absent from the public eye, at least, since the Grammys), and he and Amy do seem to have a better relationship than they have in the past. I do understand that things happen which we don’t always plan on and I’m all for not allowing the mistakes of the past cloud the future, as long as the person involved can admit to their behavior without excuses and sugar-coating.
It does seem Amy is not out of the woods yet, though, concerning her health:
Winehouse also says his daughter’s alcohol and drug abuse caused a seizure in August. Further attacks could be life-threatening. “She could die horribly. That is not going to happen – that cannot happen,” he says.
Then he’d better get back to working on her, because she’s been seen snorting vodka and stoned out of her gourd. Ultimately, though, it is up to Amy, and let’s face it…if she does not want help, she will refuse it at every turn. And her parents had better prepare for a different sort of ceremony.
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