An Open Letter to Amy Winehouse

 

Dear Amy,

How are you? Sick, exhausted, emaciated? Thought so – that’s why I’m begging you to sort yourself out…

First of all I should point out that all of us here at MSN think you’re ace, but we’re concerned that your unquestionable talents for singing, writing, performing and hair-styling are being overshadowed by your appetite for self-destruction and all the bad-girl antics that you get up to when you’re, erm, not quite in your most sober state of mind. 

The recent news that you were admitted to hospital with a suspected drug overdose hit us hard. Reports state that you collapsed in A&E, received an emergency adrenaline shot and had your stomach pumped. Sadly, it’s just the latest chapter in your dramatic decline and frankly we’re worried where it will all end.

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Take that interview you did with Skin magazine earlier this year, when you took a piece of glass and carved a love message to your husband Blake on your far-too-skinny stomach. What the hell were you thinking, woman?! You defended it by saying: “I’m not in this to be a f***ing role model.” Well that may well be the case, young Wino dear, but that doesn’t mean you should slice yourself to bits. I’m not set on being a role model either, but if I started cutting love messages to my girlfriend on my belly, my mum would beat me with her shoe! And she’d be right to.

Then there’s your weight. You’re dangerously skinny and it’s upsetting to see you like that. You’ve admitted that you’ve suffered from anorexia and bulimia in the past, and we’re certainly not making light of that, but we’re not sure you’ve got the right attitude to beating your food demons. Look at what you said in a recent interview: “I do forget to eat a lot, and I do have my odd days where I think, ‘You can't eat because you ate that yesterday.’ But I think all modern girls are like that and I don't like to make too big a thing about it.”

Rubbish. All ‘modern girls’ are certainly not like that, and you SHOULD make a big thing about it because it IS a big deal. Your fans and loved ones don’t want to see you waste away; we want to see you with some meat on your bones and some junk in your trunk. Go eat a lardy-cake immediately.

And last, and certainly by no means least, is your habit of getting absolutely hammered all the time. Now, we obviously don’t know first-hand how much booze you drink, and what else you may dabble in, but what we do know is that you are often spotted looking totally off your trolley, and you regularly do stupid things because of it. You’ve said that your favourite drink is a ‘Rickstasy’ cocktail, which is three parts vodka, one part Southern Comfort, one part banana liqueur, and one part Baileys. WHAT?! That’s not a drink; that’s a bar!

As a result of a few too many Rickstasys, you’ve cancelled concerts (citing illness, before being spotted in your local boozer the same night) and done terrible gigs where you’ve forgotten your lyrics or couldn’t stop puking, crying or ducking off stage. Generally, you’ve made a total arse of yourself in public. How can we forget this year’s Q Awards when you heckled Bono when he went on stage to collect his award, by shouting “Shut up! I don’t give a f***!”? Actually, what am I on about – that was pretty cool!

Look, you know what I’m saying. Everyone loves to let their hair down, but you’re in a bad state quite a lot of the time, and lately it’s getting more attention than your music. And OK, if I’m really honest, we do kind of like the fact that you’re not a clean-cut star, and that you’ve got a real sense of rock ’n’ roll about you, but unfortunately that seems to come at a price. And that price is your health.

So what do I suggest? Well I know it sounds like an episode of Jeremy Kyle but just get help. Your management company tried to make you go to rehab, but you now famously said “get stuffed.” And then you said: “you’re fired.” No, no, no, Amy. It’s time to start saying “yes, yes, yes”, get off your Doherty-train to self-destruction, and get a grip on your amazing career.

If your talents start fading because of your self-destructive nature, it’d be a massive tragedy. And should we just sit back and watch this tragedy happen?  Hell no, no, no…

Yours hopefully,

David at MSN

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The views in this column/blog are those of the author alone and not of MSN or Microsoft