The family of Amy Winehouse have distanced themselves from an upcoming documentary about the late singer’s life. The family are alleging that Amy, which premieres at the Cannes Film Festival next month, is biased and contains “basic untruths”.
As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, despite claims from the filmmakers that they approached the project with “total objectivity” and that the film is “a reflection of our findings” from around 100 interviews with people who knew the star, Winehouse’s family have called Amy “misleading”.
In a statement, a spokesman for the Winehouse family said they “would like to disassociate themselves from the forthcoming film about their much missed and beloved Amy”.
He added, “They feel that the film is a missed opportunity to celebrate her life and talent and that it is both misleading and contains some basic untruths.”
“There are specific allegations made against family and management that are unfounded and unbalanced.” Meanwhile, Mitch Winehouse, the singer’s father, told the Sun that he “felt sick” upon seeing the film. “Amy would have been furious. This is not what she would have wanted,” he said.
In particular, the Winehouse patriarch criticised the filmmakers’ decision to involve Amy’s notorious former boyfriend Blake Fielder-Civil, who became the subject of numerous sordid tabloid stories alongside the singer.
“Blake is saying in the film that the reason Amy was like that was because of me — not because he gave her crack and heroin and because he completely manipulated and coerced her into Class A drugs,” Mr Winehouse told the Sun, via Gigwise.
“If the real truth came out about Blake, he wouldn’t be able to walk down the street so how they can allow him to make that claim about me is so hurtful and beyond belief,” he added, also indicating that the involvement of Winehouse’s family in her addiction struggles is omitted from the film.
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“I was there for her. We were all there every day and Amy phone me up to seven times a day,” he said. “From this film there’s no impression of that whatsoever. Especially when she was sick I was there all the time.”
Mr Winehouse even suggested the family could pursue legal action. “We can’t stop it but when the film does come out we can sue for libel or slander. Our lawyers will view the film and reserve the right to do that and see whether there are any grounds,” he said.
