Amy Winehouse's Parents: She's Still Drinking, Needing Rescue

Janis and Mitch Winehouse share fears regarding daughter's life, addictions, recovery and estranged husband in British TV interview

By Breanne L. Heldman Jun 17, 2009 3:10 PMTags
Amy WinehouseAP Photo/Joel Ryan

Amy Winehouse's parents feel their drug-addled daughter needs saving.

"The need to rescue her is enormous," Janis Winehouse tells Britain's ITV News in a segment airing tonight. "It just want her to be OK, and I would do whatever it took to make that right."

The "Rehab" singer was hospitalized for supposed dehydration last month and had to cancel her comeback performance in London. Her father, Mitch, claims she is in a drug-treatment program, but still boozing.

"For the last six months, there's been a remarkable recovery," he tells the news station. "A gradual recovery, which is good. With slight backwards steps—more drink backward steps, if you follow my drift."

"Amy is in denial all the time," her mother says. "She probably feels trapped, her body is trapping her. But I know with addiction you do not have the choice, because the substance itself directs you. I want to say to her, 'Amy, what are you doing? Don't you know what you're doing?' But she by then has got herself on to it to help her get through, and I understand that."

"I need my daughter to be a whole person again," Mitch adds.

Furthermore, the star's father is anxious about his daughter's relationship with her estranged husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, and blames him for fostering her addictions.

"The option of them being together is too horrible to contemplate," he says. "They are going to get divorced, and who knows what's going to happen down the line."

In the future, however, he may be willing to offer the pair his blessing.

"Amy and Blake have decided that they want to live their lives separately, and if they get back together again in the future and they're both clean and they still love each other, that's up to them."

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