Amy Winehouse’s grim emphysema diagnosis

What happened

Troubled soul singer Amy Winehouse has been diagnosed with emphysema and her lungs have been damaged from smoking cigarettes and crack cocaine. The 24-year-old pop star’s father, Mitch Winehouse, told the Sunday Mirror, “It’s up to her, if she wants to die in three months then she leaves and goes back to drugs. Hopefully this time she won’t.” Doctor’s have also warned that Winehouse may have to wear an oxygen mask to survive if she doesn’t change her ways.

What the commentators said

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

So it turns out that “hoofing down crack and cigarettes all the time like a stinky old tramp hasn’t done Amy Winehouse’s lungs any good at all,” said Stuart Heritage in the blog Heckler Spray. Big surprise. “Any fool” could see that Winehouse has been “close to death” for “the last year or so.” But rest assured, there’s nothing to worry about—“if we can say anything about Amy Winehouse it’s that she always learns from her mistakes.”

“I’ve probably said words to the effect of ‘this should be the wake-up call she needs’ approximately 126 times throughout the history of Winegums Watch, said Clem Bastow in the blog Defamer, “but if those words ever needed to be reiterated, it would be now.” I really hope Winehouse “gets the help she needs” and doesn’t become just another tragic tale of wasted talent—“for serious this time.”

Well, apparently Winehouse is “covered in nicotine patches in a bid to save her career,” said Tamara Hardingham-Gill in the Mail Online, and “she has promised to stay clean, recently starting a drug replacement program.” Winehouse’s incarcerated husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, has even “vowed to come off drugs” in support of his wife, and Winehouse’s father has “urged her drug dealers and addict friends, such as rocker Pete Doherty,” to stay away from his daughter.

“Despite her fragile health,” said Adam Nutburn in the blog Showbiz Spy, Winehouse is still scheduled to perform at Nelson Mandela’s 90th Birthday Concert later this week. But things will be a little different for the “frail singer” this time around: “An ambulance crew will be on permanent standby,” concert organizers are “refusing Amy’s rider requests” for alcohol, and her “backstage area will include a private hospital suite with a massage bed and paramedics.”