The music community lost a great talent today. Grammy-winning singer Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London apartment. While the cause of death has yet to be confirmed, Winehouse famously battled drugs and alcohol the last few years of her life. She recently cancelled her European tour after being booed off stage in Serbia and admitting “she cannot perform to the best of her ability.” She was only 27.
Amy Winehouse’s funeral was held this morning in London’s Edgewarebury Cemetery, followed by a cremation ceremony at Golders Green Crematorium, attended by family and friend, including Kelly Osbourne and Winehouse’s frequent collaborator and producer Mark Ronson. Amy Winehouse’s autopsy, performed yesterday, proved inconclusive; toxicology tests will take two to four weeks to yield results.
According to TMZ, Amy’s father Mitch Winehouse gave a eulogy during Amy’s service, which was lead by a rabbi and performed in English and Hebrew. Mitch said, in part, “Goodnight my angel … Sleep tight. Mommy and Daddy love you ever so much,” before encouraging the attendants to sing along with the closing song, Carole King‘s “So Far Away,” all of which makes us want to lie down in a dark room and listen to “Tears Dry On Their Own” on repeat for a few more hours.
If this story’s true, then Amy Winehouse‘s untimely death has taken on another very unexpected, sad twist. The Mirror reports that Amy had plans to adopt a little girl from St Lucia and that the process was already underway. 10 year old Dannika Augustine apparently, was well on the road to becoming Amy’s daughter. The details that have been released are quite heartbreaking, with Amy supposedly already having hired lawyers for the adoption. Dannika’s grandmother, Marjorie Lambert, who was responsible for the pair meeting, also says that Winehouse was planning to visit her soon-to-be daughter next week.
Dannika has also spoken out saying, “Amy was already my mother. I would call her mum and she would call me her daughter. She took care of me and we had fun together. I loved her and she loved me. She was the most amazing person and I was looking forward to living with her here or in London. I cannot believe she is gone. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me.” Amy spent a fair amount in St Lucia over the years considering it her getaway. The photograph above shows the two of them happily strolling on the beach together and we don’t know about you but, this just got a lot more tragic for us.
