(DRAMATIC MUSIC) They both had these incredibly tumultuous relationships that produces wonderful music, but both, in their own way, struggled with fame. But it manifested itself in two completely different paths. Two massive stars in the world of music, each from a different era; one an unmistakable musical influence on the other. Amy's a powerful singer. You knew that you were taking pictures of an icon. She just had this musical ear that not a lot of artists had, and then she had that voice. Lauryn Hill was the artist of the year, and it just set the standard for what we had set as expectations for her in the future. Two soulful singers who poured their heartache into their music, only to sabotage their own careers. She didn't have the resources to overcome what she was faced with. She seemed doomed. So began that narrative that Lauryn is crazy. It just seemed like she no longer knew who she was. Young women at the height of their fame ` Amy Winehouse a slave to substances; Lauryn Hill a victim of betrayal. This is the story of two divas who never met but were each chewed up and spit out by the music industry they once dominated. The road to fame and fortune is paved with influences good and bad. Find out what leads some stars to fall under the influence. Copyright Able 2018 Born May 26 1975 in South Orange, New Jersey, Lauryn Hill was raised in a music-loving Baptist family, an environment that would influence both her spirituality and her musical style. Despite her middle-class upbringing, Hill was emotionally, politically and religiously connected to the Projects and the people who struggled in them. Groomed as an actress from an early age, Lauryn got her professional start in TV and films. The first real experience that we had with Lauryn Hill was in Sister Act II, where she was singing, but she also had a scene in the film where she's rapping. So it's always kind of a side-by-side situation. Just her presence and her aura took over that movie. People really got a real chance to hear her sing. She is gonna be a superstar. But it was in the New Jersey underground that Lauryn found her true calling ` hip hop. People don't know that Lauryn Hill had these battle rap beginnings. People who wanna believe that her career was moulded by someone else, it might've been to an extent, but she was a battle rapper too. While in high school, Lauryn meets Pras Michel and Wyclef Jean and forms a hip hop group that'll eventually go on to the become The Fugees. The Fugees redefined hip hop in the '90s. You had three stars ` you had Pras, you had Wyclef and you had Lauryn Hill, and they separated themselves from all other hip hop. The Fugees' sophomore record, The Score, is one of the best selling hip hop albums of all time and earns Lauryn her first of many Grammy awards. The Score is an important record, because, for the first time, it struck this balance where hip hop and pop intercepted. You have this group that is bringing a message to an audience that was truly wanting something different. But it's Lauryn's solo debut that crystallises her place in music history. The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill was one of the strongest, best records of '98. It probably was the record of '98. I think the success of The Fugees put up the level of pressure to deliver. She had to prove she was the star of the group, and she did that, for the most part. Despite the unprecedented success of her solo debut, Lauryn never releases a proper follow-up album. At the height of her fame and celebrity, she retreats from the public eye, leaving her fans and the industry in the dark. It was that pressure ` where's the second album, and will it be as good as Miseducation? Will you break the sophomore curse? Will you be as good as your old self? We will take a closer look at the influences Lauryn Hill was under that caused her to step out of the spotlight and off the throne she once reigned. I think with Lauryn Hill, when it came to what she represented and how she presented herself, here you had an artist who was rhyming just like the boys ` hard and ferocious and lyrical, and she's wearing a skirt, and she's wearing lipstick, and she's wearing heels. Her strength as a female artist, she still maintained that femininity, but at the same time, to have a woman go up against guys and slay them was really cool. It brought something different to the game. It was that dichotomy that I think was just so alluring for her. But Lauryn found she still had to break through the industry's glass ceiling. Personally I felt that Lauryn Hill was an equal part of The Fugees. The problem with the music industry in the mid '90s was that when you spoke of a male artist, you spoke of his talent. And when you spoke of a female artist, you spoke of her appearance. They were asking Wyclef and Pras about the genius of their music and then asking Lauryn Hill what her favourite shade of lipstick is. So you struggle with that identity. You struggle with the identity of hip hop in general. You're dealing with a misogynistic culture, and you're a woman who's supporting it, but you're also pushing it forward. That can take its toll on you. Finding her place as a woman in the male-dominated world of hip hop is the start of Lauryn's identity crisis. Meanwhile, Wyclef and Pras named their group The Fugees as they are Haitian refugees. Lauryn is expected to play up this identity too. As soon as Lauryn Hill ended up in The Fugees, she is a girl from New Jersey but she is perceived as Haitian. So she struggles with the identity. Culturally speaking, who is she at that point? Lauryn will be under the influence of this identity crisis throughout her career. Identity a sense of 'who am I?' So an identity crisis is really when you face circumstances in your life where you start to question exactly that. Who am I? Why am I here? What am I doing? What's important to me? It was forced at times for her to seem like she was part of what Wyclef and Pras were. I think she was getting this underlying message that who she really was was not good enough, which can just feed her own insecurities. Lauryn Hill was raised middle class but identified with ghetto culture. This was the start of an identity crisis that continues as her career takes off. To her public, Lauryn projects the image of a strong, independent artist. But in private, she falls under the influence of men who exploit her and her bank account. There were always these rumours that Lauryn and Wyclef were involved. At the time, when it came to women in hip hop, there was just this struggle to prove you could do it without dating the guy that you're working with. I think that was a big reason why it was kept a secret, but also Wyclef was married. Any time that happens and you're in a group, it can have a very negative effect, but it can often have a very positive effect and you can create great fiction, which can often create great music. They became each other's muses. Lauryn learned so much from Wyclef. He was teaching her how to play the guitar. He would give the constructive criticism as she was trying to make her poems turn into raps. And likewise Lauryn would be that romantic object of his affection so that when he was rhyming, there was this passion behind it. You know, Wyclef was a mentor, but he was also a paramour, and that combination is crazy when the music comes out. Being in love with somebody that you work with, I can imagine, was really confusing for Lauryn when it came to Wyclef. Like, one minute he's your mentor; the next minute, you're laying in bed with him. The instability of that, I'm sure, was not only exhausting for her but just lead to a lot of emotional pain. I think he was also very convincing that this was possible to do and she wouldn't be hurting his marriage. Lauryn is in love with a married man. This complicated and secret relationship with Wyclef is a heart-aching influence on her and her dreams for the future. Her grandmother had 13 children, so she knew she was going to eventually get married and have many, many kids. It's something she's always wanted, and she said that in interviews. But here she is as someone's mistress ` as Wyclef's mistress. Maybe there were these delusions of grandeur that she would someday become his wife and they would have this large family together, but that didn't happen, especially in the middle of The Score when Wyclef broke up with her while she was in the studio. Wyclef went to Lauryn, explained to her that his wife was moving in and told her it was over, then sent her into the booth to sing the cook to 'Ready or Not'. Lauryn Hill is just 20 years old when she records 'Ready or Not' in 1995. The song will help to break The Fugees in Europe. And when you listen to the song now, you wonder why there's so much passion in that hook about 'find you and make you want me.' The pain that's coming out of her voice, now knowing why and what was happening at that exact moment that she was recording it, (SIGHS) it just defined their relationship. I think there was a lot of highs and lows through that. One time I talked to Wyclef about it, and he said there was a lot of great times with The Fugees, but at the same time there was a lot of volatility that came from the relationship with Lauryn. And then we learn later on that by the time they went on the tour for The Score, they got back together. Just the intensity of that makes it very difficult if there's also a lot of tension and friction going on around interpersonal and personal relations. It's that up and down. It's that torture and the love and... You could make a whole movie about it. But new love and a career-defining album is just around the corner. * * One bad influence can lead to another. Lauryn Hill wages a war within the music industry for acceptance and respect, an industry that will later use and abuse Amy Winehouse with devastating impact. Lauryn Hill is under the influence of an on-again, off-again relationship with Wyclef Jean. But a new love is waiting in the wings. Rohan Marley's the son of Bob Marley. He was just in love with Lauryn. He was enamoured by her, and during the time of The Fugees' tour, rumour has it that Rohan would show up to every tour date with flowers and try to ask her out. She was still involved with Wyclef. And then eventually I think Rohan wore her down. He asked her out enough times, and she eventually said yes. Lauryn is under the influence of a new relationship with Rohan Marley and is also pregnant with their first son, Zion. At just 21 years old, she starts writing and recording solo material. With The Fugees on hold, each member plans to release a solo album. Wyclef tells the press that he will have a heavy hand in Lauryn's but makes sure to release his first. When you look at the timeline of what was supposed to happen following The Score, Wyclef put out his project because Lauryn Hill got pregnant. And then one day, Lauryn just (HUFFS) dropped it, complete with a lead single that was a diss track to Wyclef. I mean, when she released 'Doo Wop (That Thing)', that song was a call to independence, something Lauryn never had. It was some of the best packaging of what an artist is supposed to be. I think it was a high point for the music industry in the '90s where they've presented this person as strong with a unique voice influenced by so much. It wasn't just hip hop or R&B. It was soul; it was so many of these things. It was fresh, and it broke ground for Destiny's Child, Jennifer Lopez and so many artists down the road. Lauryn has freed herself from Wyclef's control but is soon morphing into Rohan's culture, leaving her again without a clear identity. So she's pregnant at, like, 22 years old. She's with Rohan Marley, so now there's this whole element of being Jamaican or Rastafarian that gets impressed upon her. And you see, depending upon who Lauryn is standing beside, how she attempts to evolve into those people around her. And that's an identity crisis. It's a textbook identity crisis. But I think with Lauryn, it's taken to the next level. You see Lauryn growing out her locks, wrapping her hair, showing up on Bob Marley specials and just being very, very Jamaican when I don't know if she's Jamaican either. (CHUCKLES) So she went from Haitian to Jamaican right before our eyes. I think she really truly wanted to be a part of the Marley family, but it was the lie that was being perpetrated and this confusion about who she is, what her identity is. She wanted to attach herself to it, but it wasn't real. Lauryn's album is a massive success. It sells 19 million copies worldwide. She breaks records at the Grammy Awards. The '99 Grammys, she had 10 nominations. She won five awards. She was the artist of the year, and it just set the standard for what we had set as expectations for her in the future. Everybody was looking forward to finding out ` what's Lauryn Hill gonna do next? However, the success of the album ultimately has a negative impact on young Lauryn, who is now under pressure from the music industry to produce a follow-up. You can see in Lauryn's life that she made it to the very top. Like, she was very well respected, very famous, a female leader in the industry. But the industry is about to put Lauryn on defence with a court battle that will challenge her integrity as an artist. I think ultimately Lauryn Hill took a bit of a fall for what the record company did in the way that she was presented in presenting her as the ultimate creative director in everything she was doing when there were these other musicians who truly contributed to what the music was. Produced, composed, arranged, written by Lauryn Hill. They made it this one-woman show when it, in fact, wasn't, and it later came back to haunt her with her lawsuits with New-Ark Entertainment. They settled out of court, but I think for her it was a bit of an eye-opener. Even when I spoke to her on the phone about that, it was still an emotional mood for her. It was a level of trust that was broken for her, I think. With the Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, I truly believed at the time that this was the real Lauryn Hill, and this was the strong person that she was. As it turns out, it seems like it was probably just good marketing and presentation by the record company. I think it put pressure on her to live up to a standard that she wasn't prepared to live up to. The legal battle over The Miseducation adds to Lauryn's disillusionment with the industry. On top of this are rumours that Rohan has become unfaithful. While Lauryn is again questioning who she is, her behaviour is starting to give her a bad reputation. There were some rumours that had begun to spread around in the industry that perhaps she was becoming more difficult to work with. I think we began to realise that maybe there was something else going on, that all of the things that had happened leading up to the success of that record and the conflict that she'd had with her relationships, with her family, with everything that had transpired since the success of The Score were coming to a head. At that point, there was all these rumours swirling about Lauryn. There were rumours that she had issues with Rohan and her label. And, you know, she shared to me, 'I don't want any interaction with my record label. 'I just wanna regroup and be myself.' The relationship with Rohan is up and down. They spend long periods of time apart. Ultimately they have five children together throughout their relationship. Once Rohan's infidelity had started, rumour has it that Lauryn had cut off her family for knowing and not talking to her about it. But they were never actually married by the court of law, and we come to realise that Rohan had another wife somewhere. That was another piece to the identity crisis puzzle, because, yeah, Lauryn got the title of wife, but it was like, 'Not so fast.' Rohan allegedly cheats on Lauryn with her assistant who is also her cousin. Once the mistress, now Lauryn is on the other side of the relationship, and this betrayal shatters her trust in those closest to her. All of a sudden, it's history repeating itself, only she went from mistress to wife, and the same response happened. Marley's gonna Marley. Crushed by her family for allegedly covering up Rohan's infidelities and betrayed by her record label for setting her up for a fall, Lauryn cuts herself off from all of them. This move leaves her vulnerable for a new influence to surface. * Influences come in many forms. Bad relationships, both personal and professional, played Lauryn Hill. Industry pressure is part of her unravelling, as it will be later for Amy Winehouse, but with tragic results. In the years following the release of The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, fans, family and friends begin to see a change in Lauryn. Once she went on the live circuit, she started doing her own hair and make-up. She started wearing these elaborate clothes. I don't think she, you know, decided, 'You know what? I'm just gonna be my own make-up artist 'and I'm just not gonna take care of myself.' I think that was just the emotional outcry of what she was dealing with. It brought more attention. It brought more people to talk about the fact that what is wrong with her. It could've been a cry for help. People thought that she was unravelling. It looks like it's a defence mechanism. She makes herself as intimidating as possible once again so that people can't talk to her. You're unapproachable. At that time, she feels like she's taken advantage of, and then we see her behaviour change. And typically when we see a behaviour change, there's a belief system change. It's obvious that her world view changed when it comes to trusting other people. Lauryn Hill has often been under the influence of different men in her life and career, a pattern that will repeat. For most of Lauryn Hill's entire career, she was surrounded by men. I guess you could call Brother Anthony the latest mentor of Lauryn Hill. He was this religious figure, spiritual guide who had apparently been instructing her to look around her and develop this distrust and resentment toward what the industry and the people around her had done. Very little is known about Brother Anthony, but sources say he may have purchased multiple fake degrees in theology and counselling. He is also believed to have bee under investigation by the IRS for not paying taxes, a situation Lauryn will be in while under his influence. When she connected with Brother Anthony, it was the beginning of her trying to find her faith and trying to find strength. Unfortunately, as most of her friends said, it was more of a cult than genuine Christianity. On the one hand, it was a kind of reaction to her life experience. She was searching for a pure and more spiritual home in her life. He was a cult figure, essentially, and he drew her in and cut her off from all of the different people around her who had supported her, and that's what cult figures do so that they become the primary influence in their life. In my opinion, people turn to religion after trauma because they're looking for a community that they need to believe that somebody has their back, and they turn to God. When it comes to Lauryn, I think that's why she allows Brother Anthony to have such an influence on her, because she was so vulnerable, desperate for somebody to trust and desperate for answers. It is believed that Brother Anthony convinces Lauryn to leave her celebrity life and find new ways to make money. Brother Anthony had instructed her to start selling things at a higher value. She had this website where she was selling this book that she had written and these Polaroids of herself for a crazy amount of money. There are rumours also that she was tithing to him and giving a large sum of money to him. I think that if he was there to help her, he would not have taken her money. He would have helped her and just left. He's now not only having an influence on Lauryn's finances but also her world view. She started to speak in scriptures instead of actually communicating with her friends. And she didn't like what was happening in the world, and she spoke out about it, but it was never really clear what her motivation was or why she was doing it. And so began, once again, that narrative that Lauryn is crazy. Meanwhile, fans and the industry are anxious for the follow-up to her triumphant solo debut. The live album, MTV Unplugged 2.0, fails to impress with its stripped-down acoustic vibe and rambling spoken interludes. For Lauryn Hill, I felt that after the MTV Unplugged, she no longer knew who she was. For the industry, and me being in the industry, I began to think she never really knew who she was, because it all happened so fast and there had been no support system there for her to carry on. Over the next decade, Lauryn releases no new music and makes very few public appearances. Brother Anthony fades out of her life as mysteriously as he entered it. In 2013, Lauryn is convicted of tax evasion related to the period of time she was under Brother Anthony's influence. Her record company pays her debt, but she's sentenced to three months in prison. When Lauryn Hill got out of jail for tax evasion, there was this hopefulness that something great and new was going to come. It seemed in 2016 that Lauryn Hill had the potential to make the comeback that everybody wanted her to have, and it was gonna be at the Grammys, and it was gonna be with The Weeknd. Unfortunately it didn't happen. She has made a few live appearances, including the Austin City Limits festival, the BET Awards, and the Tonight Show in 2016. But when she does show up, she often arrives late. Personally I think it's disrespectful for Lauryn as an artist to treat her fans that way, because no matter what has happened in her life, these fans are still coming out to see you. They're coming out to still support you, no matter what you've gone through. They're coming there with love. To me, Lauryn showing up late to her concerts is her getting her power back, so that's a sense of defiance in a way. Like, I can at least control my own behaviour, and I'm really just gonna show up when I want to. I think Lauryn feels so betrayed by the music industry that I don't think she feels like she owes it anything. She shows up when she wants to show up, and she performs when she wants to perform. And I think that that's her whole frame of mind right now. 'You ripped me apart, you broke me down, you gave me this identity crisis, 'so now you're gonna play by my rules, and this is how I'm going to do that.' I still truly believe Lauryn Hill today has the potential to return. I think that people respect what she's gone through, to a certain degree. The fact that she survived removing herself from the industry, I still think there's that hope that she's gonna do something great. I mean, we've gotta give her some credit. She came back out and put herself on a stage, despite what anyone else had said about her. She's still doing it, maybe not at the speed we want her to or at the efficiency, but she's still doing it. She's still a voice that people connect with, an enigma that people love. So if she did manage to put out something, I think it would be incredible. I think Lauryn is going to continue to play by her own rules, which is arguably the first time in her entire career that she's been able to do that. Lauryn Hill fell under the influence of her mentor Wyclef Jean and his identity. She was betrayed by the very industry that gave her wealth and fame, then sabotaged her own stardom for a false prophet and ended up in jail. Now finally free of those influences, Lauryn marches to her own beat, whether her fans like it or not. While Lauryn was on the ascent, a newcomer was discovered her music. Amy Winehouse stepped into her first recording studio the same year The Miseducation was released. Amy was heading for major fame, and, like Lauryn, would crumble under its influence. Amy Winehouse was born September 14th 1983 in Southgate, London, the younger of two children. Her mum was a pharmacist. Her dad was driving a cab. Mitch was fond of saying that he came from a very big, loving family himself, and he always wanted to give his own children that same sort of family life. By the time she was in her 20s, the whole world knew her name. Amy's second album, Back To Black, was an international smash, decorating the singer with five Grammy awards, making her the first British woman to win that many in a single night. Amy was a powerful singer. She checked out Nina Simone; she checked out Ella Fitzgerald; she checked out all the greats. But then she had the pop appeal, so she was able to go mainstream, and we hadn't heard that since Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill. And then to pour into that mixture her own emotions and feelings, that's a difficult thing to do, and it's a remarkable thing to do at such a young age. But despite the talent and the acclaim, Back To Black would be Amy's final album. She lived hard, you know? Live fast, die young. I think to assume that she would have such a long career, when you line her up next to the people you think about ` your Janis Joplins or even your Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrisons, Kurt Cobain ` that kind of magic is so powerful but it's so short-lived. At age 27, Amy Winehouse was dead. What influences was Amy under in her short life that lead her to a sad and lonely end? When we look close enough, the clues were there all along. Amy grows up in a house full of music, mostly Sinatra and jazz. Amy's father, Mitch, is the centre of her world. Amy's upbringing was a typically very loving North London Jewish family who were a very straightforward, basic, working class family, very close-knit. The problem was that Mitch began an affair when Amy was about 7 years old. This threw everything into disarray psychologically for Amy. Amy idolised her father, and she couldn't understand why he would leave her, and he left the family finally when she was only 9. Everything that she had come to count on in her life was suddenly taken away from her, and she blamed herself for that. People would underestimate what it would mean to have her parents separate and how that shattered her foundation and the stability in her life. And when that happens to a young person, depending on the constitution of us ` we're all very different ` we would experience these circumstances differently. And so she did that in different ways to release her pain. Amy had admitted to cutting as early as age 9, saying it started as a curiosity, but the timing coincides with her parents' divorce. Usually people who cut will do it on their arms or their legs and in places they can keep covered so people won't know that they're cutting. I've heard two schools of thought on that. One is people feel so much pain that it is the only way that they can release their pain, and I've also heard by cutting, they're also able to exercise some control over themselves and the pain that they feel. Amy's rebellion ramps up through her preteen years. She's eventually medicated for depression. She did see doctors. She did see psychiatrists. But if somebody's going to self-harm, they're going to do that until they stop needing to do it, and there's only so much her doctor can do with medication. She didn't have within herself the resources to overcome what she was faced with. She seemed doomed. More problems start in Amy's teenage years when she begins struggling with bulimia. Most people think that eating disorders are about food and about bodies, but they're actually not. They're really about what's going on with the person at a much deeper level. Amy was a troubled teen in need of guidance and support that just wasn't there. Her eating disorder becomes a lifelong battle. But it was fairly obvious from the size and shape of her that this was something she was dealing with. The food and the body become the place of control, of lack of control, an easy and convenient place to engage in harm. They're not about vanity and a person wanting to look a certain way. That is the misconception of eating disorders. Amy opens up to her mother about the new diet she's discovered ` to eat anything she wants and then vomit. And her mother admits to simply dismissing it as a teenage phase. When it came to her parents, I don't know if they paid so much attention to her pain, and I think it got worse the more famous she got. It was an opportunity for them to look deeper at what was going on with her kid, and it was definitely something that she was saying, 'Please look at me. Please notice me.' But ultimately ongoing harm in the face of an eating disorder can result in death. This wouldn't be the only time her parents ignored the warning signs. As Amy's problems continue into adulthood, she starts abusing alcohol. But her father doesn't think she needs help, a decision that not only enables Amy but also inspires the lyrics of one of her most successful singles, 'Rehab'. The cutting, the bulimia, the substance abuse disorders, they all kind of worked together. In her particular case, I think it goes back to her father and her feeling abandoned. Mitch was in denial about Amy's condition. And as far as his limited viewpoint was concerned, he felt that she was healing herself by writing songs about the things that were troubling her. Amy totally loved her father. I think Mitch had great fondness for Amy ` It was a father-and-daughter relationship. At the end of the day, Amy wanted a lot more from Mitch. Under the influence of her permissive parents and a serious eating disorder, Amy pursues a high-profile, high-pressure career in music, one she will not be strong enough to handle. * Bad influences can come from good people. Parents should keep their children safe, but Amy Winehouse's parents ignore warning signs and leave her to her own devices. Amy then uses music as a way to fix the disconnection with them. R&B, jazz, swing ` she'd grown up on those records in her father's collection. She had angst and she had a need to express, and she saw a way to appeal to her father by reproducing the music he'd grown up on, the music he'd loved. I know her dad loves music, and it's probably one of the main reasons that she was the singer that she became. In 2003, 20-year-old Amy releases her debut album, Frank. It is awarded the Ivor Novello and goes triple platinum. It had the elements of years passed. It came out in a time where people were desperately looking for that sound again. The music industry marketing machine makes Amy Winehouse a celebrity, and with that gives her access to everything VIP. There's Amy Winehouse at the centre of things, and she would've been a figure of attention because of her musicianship. She got into what they call a music crowd in Camden. It's been well documented that Amy loved to go partying and was a Camden girl and loved going out in Camden more than anywhere else in London. Which is not as glamorous as it comes across. It seems like a desirable, sort of, edgy place, but it's a filthy old place. It's really not something you wanna be involved in, and, of course, that's where she met Blake Fielder-Civil. Blake Fielder-Civil, he was the Nancy to Amy's Sid. They had this crazy relationship; this strange, wild love. It was just so intense and toxic, but it kept Amy going. Amy loved it. She loved Blake. He was the petrol on the fire. There's no doubt about that. It seemed very obvious to me that Blake was the father substitute, that he was somebody she could lean on, where her own father had vanished from her life, and this is why she took up with him very young. Of course that was doomed from the start. Amy quickly falls under the influence of Blake. They're inseparable and share a love for drugs and booze. She just latched on to the wrong person who was as needy as she was and who also required props. So together they were the most dangerous combination. Amy's volatile relationship with Blake is short-lived as he soon dumps her for an old girlfriend. Amy then pours her pain into her music. The result is the 2006 juggernaut album Back To Black. Back To Black was such a huge success because she had a soulful aspect to her music, but then she had the pop appeal, so shew as able to go mainstream. So she was able to hit all of these points with one project. The same year Back To Black is released, Amy loses her beloved grandmother, a former jazz singer. During this emotional low, Blake reappears, as does his bad influence on Amy. She did a performance at New York's Highland Ballroom, and it was actually a point where we didn't know if she was with Blake, but he had attended the show. And I remember writing in my article, 'This mysterious man was giving her this power. 'Every time she looked at him, she looked plugged in, and then when she had to look at everyone else, 'she looked unplugged.' Blake was stage left. When she got to stage right, she looked distraught. By the time she got to stage left, she was happy again. And it was amazing to watch. And knowing what became of that relationship, watching that in its early stages, you knew something was up. This is a co-dependent and destructive relationship for everyone. Amy is obsessed with Blake. She marries him in 2007 and heads down an even darker path. She liked to drink ` there's no question about that. I think that was probably her biggest influence, was alcohol. Once she met Blake, things changed. Blake introduced her to hard drugs. And if she could have melted Blake down and put him into a syringe and shot him up, she would've done that. What had started with the milder drugs soon became overuse of alcohol, soon became cocaine, soon got to her injecting heroin between her toes. They had this wild love where it was beating each other up and breaking up, crying, and it was just so intense and toxic. I'd witnessed the abuse to her body ` physical abuse, cuts, fights, the two of them fighting each other One night in the Covent Garden hotel, smashing up an entire room, coming out at 3am with blood over their faces, over their arms, but still totally in love with each other. It unravelled when the abuse became so much that her career started to take the wrong turn. She was due to go to Norway. The gate of her property opened, and she came out with Blake. There was a car waiting for them, but Blake got into the car and left Amy on the street. I obviously immediately started taking some pictures, got out of my car, walked over, and Blake turned to me and said, 'I've got to go. Can you look after her? She's your problem now.' Amy looked at me, and he just vanished, jumped in his car and left me. It was like looking at a shark. Her eyes were completely glazed. Whatever she was on had developed into a way where she couldn't even really tell where she was, and I was concerned for her. But that night she had taken an overdose and had been put into hospital. * Amy Winehouse and her husband, Blake, enable each other's dangerous drug addictions. In the fall of 2007, Blake is put in prison for bribery. Amy is shattered and falls into a deep, downward spiral. I went to a show of hers at the Brixton Academy and she came on stage three hours' late. When she eventually came on stage, she was drunk out of her skull. She couldn't deal with being there. I mean, there was never a dull moment playing a gig with Amy. We really didn't know what to expect. Sometimes we'd get to a festival gate, and the agent inside the transport would say, 'Sorry, guys. We're going home.' Amy is on a self-destructive mission. And just like when she was a child, it seems no one is trying to help. The influencers around her, she had very little parenting. Mitch was always absent. You had security that didn't protect her from herself when she should've been. By the time she did go to rehab, she just left. She couldn't hack it. She didn't like it. Under pressure from her record company to clean up her act, Amy tries to dry out but quickly fails. Her management takes measures to keep attention away from Amy. People would try to wait outside Amy's house. You would then be confronted by her security, who would ask you to move on. But then it became quite clear to a number of photographers... there was a couple of photographers that had a deal with security where they were allowed to photograph Amy and no one else was. So obviously there was money changing hands between those photographers and the security. And it became then quite clear that the flow of drugs were coming through some connection to Amy and people were able to come and go from Amy's house and also support and look after her. Despite her management team's best efforts, Amy is on a catastrophic course. Her doctor warns that if she keeps drinking, she will die. There was a dark moment in rehearsal before the last tour we did. She walks in rehearsal, and the first thing she says is, 'Guys, I'm not gonna make it till the end of the year.' And actually because she was so witty all the time and she had such a dark sense of humour, we all laughed, because she'd deliver these one-liners. But in hindsight, you know, you just think, 'My goodness,' you know, 'it's like she knew or something.' I don't think any of us were surprised, on one level, but it was shocking. There are reports that Amy was apprehensive about performing live but was forced to go through with a European tour in 2011. I think the reason why no one stepped in to stop this train wreck is because the gravy train was too strong. So they wanted that fame to keep going for as long as they possibly could. She became a commodity. Why would you put someone on stage when they're not ready? I wouldn't, and I don't know why anyone would. Money had been spent, and everybody wanted their money back. Everybody wanted their pound of flesh from Amy, and it didn't actually occur to anybody that this person was crumbling and dying in front of their eyes. On June 18th 2011, Amy takes the stage in Belgrade for what will be the first gig of that tour and also the last. (SIGHS) We knew we were in for a tough ride in that gig. You know, she wasn't in a fit state to go on stage. What do you do... in that scenario? You know, you've got 50,000 people waiting for you. And it got to the point where she was literally pushed on stage. You could see in her eyes that it wasn't gonna be a great gig. It was absolutely a shocking performance. Just total car crash. She's abusing the audience; she's shouting at people; she's arguing with her own band, which she never, ever did. And you could just tell that the layers of the onion were starting to really peel off and she was starting to fall apart. I think we probably played for just over an hour, and we didn't get through a single song. It was heartbreaking to see her like that on stage, and, yes, embarrassing and humiliating for all of us. As I say, the overwhelming sense was just heartbreak. The European tour is cancelled, and Amy heads home. A statement reads,... After the gig in Serbia, I wanted to call her to say, you know, 'It's OK. It may have been a disastrous gig, 'but it's OK. We still love you,' kind of thing. 'Keep trying to get back on to solid ground.' I remember my finger was poised over the call button on Skype, and I didn't because I thought she needed space. And apparently the night before she died, she said, 'Does Troy still love me?' And it just... it, you know` it broke my heart. And since then, (SIGHS) you really think about what you say to people, cos you don't know whether it'll be their last moment. Um... It was touching to know that, um,... she still thought of me in that way. On July 23rd 2011, Amy Winehouse died alone in her home of accidental alcohol poisoning. And so many asked the question, 'Why didn't somebody do something? Why didn't her mother and father look after her?' She was 27 years old. You can't, with a 27-year-old adult, be there 24/7. It was the alcohol that killed her ` the constant drinking that really had its effect on her. The day that Amy died, she suddenly becomes the most famous person in the world again. (SOLEMN MUSIC) I wrote a piece for Pitchfork called 'We All Destroyed Amy Winehouse'. I felt as though beyond pointing fingers at her parents and beyond pointing fingers at her record label and the music industry, we, as the fans, demanded so much from her. We bullied her. Instead of seeing that this was a huge cry for help, you just went to internet bully status and just shamed her. And she's a great tragedy, cos she's the classic artist who has become an artist to fill the void but still hasn't found what she needed to create a stable life. It's the biggest tragedy there is. Amy's parents ignored warning signs and enabled the bad behaviour that dominated her short life. A co-dependent with Blake Fielder-Civil sent her off the rails. The industry didn't intervene in time. But ultimately Amy may have been her own worst influence. Lauryn and Amy both shot to stardom on the success of a singular groundbreaking album. They were victimised by a ruthless industry, but also wiped out their own careers. Lauryn Hill and Amy Winehouse fell... Copyright Able 2018