Amy Winehouse Dead At 27, Leaves Long Legacy Of Music And Madness
Amy Winehouse, the internationally and critically acclaimed yet highly-controversial English singer-songwriter, was found dead in her north London apartment. She was 27. Police are calling the cause of death undetermined, but many suspect a drug overdose.
Winehouse, sadly, joins the so-called “27 Club,” a list of rock music artists who died at the age of 27, including Kurt Cobain, Brtian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison.
London Metro police issued this statement:
Police were called by London Ambulance Service to an address in Camden Square NW1 shortly before 16.05hrs today, Saturday 23 July, following reports of a woman found deceased. On arrival officers found the body of a 27-year-old female who was pronounced dead at the scene. Enquiries continue into the circumstances of the death. At this early stage it is being treated as unexplained.
Via the BBC:
Rumours of Winehouse’s death began circulating on Twitter on Saturday evening. Among those to comment was former prime minister’s wife Sarah Brown.
“Sad sad news of Amy Winehouse – great talent, extraordinary voice, and tragic death, condolences to her family,” she tweeted.
Singer and presenter Myleene Klass tweeted: “OMG. Amy Winehouse. Exceptional talent and really nice lady. RIP.”
BBC Radio 1 DJ Fearne Cotton wrote: “Can not believe the news. Amy was a special girl. The saddest news.”
Daily Telegraph rock critic Neil McCormick said he was “utterly shocked” at her death.
He said she had appeared focused when giving an “incredible performance” for a recent studio recording of a duet with Tony Bennett.
“It’s deeply sad. It’s the most completely tragic waste of talent that I can remember,” he added.
At the time she pulled out of the tour, her spokesman said: “Amy Winehouse is withdrawing from all scheduled performances.
“Everyone involved wishes to do everything they can to help her return to her best and she will be given as long as it takes for this to happen.”
Via The Telegraph:
Amy Winehouse, who has died aged 27, ticked all the right boxes for a self-destructive wild child of pop, having bags of “attitudeâ€, a drink and drugs problem and a no-good man; yet underneath the ratty beehive hair-do, oversized plastic earrings, kohl-encrusted eyes and tattoo-covered arms, she was also an addictive and engaging performer with a natural deep voice who sang with a jazzy, passionate energy.
Amy Winehouse’s music — Sixties pop-soul in 21st-century street slang — was always less interesting than her chaotic off-stage life. Her name seldom featured in the press unless prefixed by the word “troubled†and accompanied by an account of her battles with drink and drugs and her dependent-abusive relationship with her husband, a petty drug dealer and junkie called Blake Fielder-Civil. Cancelled gigs, brushes with the law and spells in rehab gave the press plenty to write about; commentators saw parallels between Amy Winehouse’s charge towards self-destruction with Blake Fielder-Civil and their punk rock counterparts Nancy Spungeon and Sid Vicious.
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Via the London Mail:
Winehouse has had a troubled life which has included various stints in rehab for drug and alcohol addiction.
In an interview in 2008, her mother Janis said she would be unsurprised if her daughter died before her time.
She said: ‘I’ve known for a long time that my daughter has problems. But seeing it on screen rammed it home. I realise my daughter could be dead within the year. We’re watching her kill herself, slowly.
‘I’ve already come to terms with her dead. I’ve steeled myself to ask her what ground she wants to be buried in, which cemetery. Because the drugs will get her if she stays on this road.‘I look at Heath Ledger and Britney. She’s on their path. It’s like watching a car crash – this person throwing all these gifts away.’
Via CBS:
Winehouse has struggled with drug and alcohol abuse. In May it was reported that she checked into a treatment facility after her father, Mitch, encouraged her to seek help.
Winehouse won five Grammy Awards for her 2008 album “Back to Black” and the single “Rehab,” including Best Pop Vocal Album, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best New Artist.
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Via Wikipedia on Wisehouse’s discography:
The discography of Amy Winehouse (1983–2011), an English soul, jazz, and R&B singer, contains two studio albums and ten singles.
Winehouse’s debut album, Frank, was released by Island Records in the United Kingdom in October 2003 and peaked at number thirteen on the UK Album Chart, however none of the four singles released from the album managed to reach the Top 50 of the UK Singles Chart. Her second album and the last released in her lifetime, Back to Black, was released in October 2006 and went to number one in the UK , and peaked at number seven on the Billboard 200 in the United States. The album was certified five-times platinum by the British Phonographic Industry and it was the best-selling album of 2007 in the UK. The first single from the album, “Rehab”, peaked at number seven in the UK, and number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. The album’s second single, “You Know I’m No Good” reached number eighteen in the UK. Other singles were the title-track, “Back to Black”, “Tears Dry on Their Own” and “Love Is a Losing Game”. A special deluxe edition of the album was released in the UK in November 2007 and also topped the charts. By mid-2009 Back to Black had sold a total of 2,985,303 copies and was the eighteenth biggest seller ever in the UK.[1]
Winehouse collaborated with other artists, as a vocalist on the song “Valerie” on Mark Ronson’s solo album, Version. The song peaked at number two in the UK. She also collaborated with ex-Sugababe Mutya Buena, on “B Boy Baby,” from Buena’s solo album, Real Girl.
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The BBC has a profile on Winehouse from 2008.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
