The Turbulent Love Story Of Amy Winehouse And Blake Fielder-Civil In Back To Black

The new biopic Back to Black not only chronicles Amy Winehouse’s meteoric rise through music but also highlights turbulent aspects of her personal life. In particular focus is the singer’s volatile relationship with ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil.

Winehouse and Fielder-Civil were married for a little over two years. The couple made plenty of headlines, often for problematic reasons. Both faced legal troubles and battled addiction. The turbulent nature of their relationship inspired some of Winehouse’s popular songs and made them popular tabloid fodder.

Ultimately, Winehouse’s unexpected death in July 2011 cast a tragic shadow over their relationship that still lingers.

The couple fell in love through music

Fielder-Civil and Winehouse met at a London pub called The Good Mixer in 2005. He was working in video production for commercials and musicians such as Lily Allen and the rock band Kasabian. Winehouse had released her debut album Frank in 2003 but had yet to achieve the global fame that would come with 2006’s Back to Black.

In a 2016 interview with Complex, Fielder-Civil, now 42, said he was skeptical when Winehouse initially told him she was a musician and offered to sing to him. “I really fancied her, and I didn’t want to have pretend I liked it,” he said. Instead, he was dazzled by her version of “Round Midnight.”

“I think I, at that moment, fell in love with her,” he said.

The couple dated off and on over the next year, with the unfaithful nature of their relationship and ensuing breakup inspiring a significant part of the Back to Black album. The title track, for example, refers to Fielder-Civil returning to a past girlfriend.

“All the songs are about the state of my relationship at the time with Blake,” Winehouse told Rolling Stone in 2007. “I had never felt the way I feel about him about anyone in my life. It was very cathartic, because I felt terrible about the way we treated each other.”

The couple eventually reunited and became engaged in April 2007. They married the following month in Miami. However, there were more warning signs in the relationship—most notably, their use of hard drugs.

Amy said their marriage was “based on doing drugs”

In early 2007, Fielder-Civil introduced Winehouse to heroin. According to The Guardian, he told ITV’s Jeremy Kyle Show in 2013 he had used the drug “three or four times” before the singer asked to try it herself. “I was smoking it on foil, and she said can I try some and I said… I might have put up a weak resistance—the fact is whatever I said, she did end up having some,” he said.

Although both of them became addicted, Fielder-Civil insisted they only used the drug together over four months of their years-long relationship—and that Winehouse’s dependence grew worse after his arrest later in 2007.

However, the singer offered a much bleaker assessment of their time together, telling News of the World in 2009, “Our whole marriage was based on doing drugs.” Coupled with their drug use, a series of legal troubles soon placed further strain on the relationship.

The couple's legal troubles and divorce

Following the March 2007 debut of Back to Black in the United States, Winehouse began showing visible signs of her drug and alcohol addiction. Her stateside tour was canceled after a series of erratic performances and TV appearances, with the singer claiming she was suffering from exhaustion. That October, Winehouse and Fielder-Civil were arrested in Norway for marijuana possession.

Only a month later, Fielder-Civil found himself in much bigger trouble. He was arrested and jailed in connection to a 2006 bar fight. He eventually admitted to assaulting the pub’s manager then offering him $400,000 to stay quiet about the incident. A London court sentenced him to 27 months in prison for assault and obstructing justice in July 2008, and he served 12 months of the sentence.

Despite this public show of support, their marriage was already falling apart. According to court documents, Winehouse admitted to having an affair and confessing it to Fielder-Civil in April 2008. The couple lived separately following this revelation.

Fielder-Civil ultimately filed for divorce the following year, and the High Court Family division in London granted their split in July 2009.

The couple reconnected before Winehouse’s death

By the time of the breakup, Fielder-Civil had begun a relationship with Sarah Aspin, whom he met in rehab. Still, he and Amy remained close and eventually rekindled their relationship in 2010. They reportedly talked about remarrying.

However, in June 2011, Fielder-Civil was sentenced to 32 months in jail for burglary and possession of an imitation firearm. The following month, on July 23, Winehouse was found dead inside her home in London at age 27. Officials determined alcohol poisoning as the cause of death.

Because he was in jail at the time, Fielder-Civil was only allowed to attend a small ceremony in a prison chapel following her death. He became the subject of scorn from fans and members of Winehouse’s family, who blamed him at least partially for her death. Her father, Mitch, wrote in his 2012 memoir Amy, My Daughter that Fielder-Civil was the “biggest low-life scumbag that God ever put breath into.”

Still, he insists he genuinely loved Amy. “And if there was anything that I could do to bring her back, I would obviously,” he said.

See Back to Black in theaters now

According to Variety, director Sam Taylor-Johnson was determined to cast Unbroken star Jack O’Connell as Fielder-Civil in Back to Black. The 33-year-old actor told the outlet he spent an afternoon with Fielder-Civil to prepare for the movie, though they spoke mostly about soccer.

“When I met Blake, he resembled the kind of guys that I looked up to back in the day, the sorts of characters I’d be drawn to and want to have a drink with and spend time with,” O’Connell said. “I felt like I had stuff in common with him and understood the type of geezer that he is and wanted to handle that authentically and give the portrayal a bit of depth.”

See O’Connell as Fielder-Civil and Marisa Abela as Winehouse in Back to Black, now in theaters. Get tickets!