Amy Winehouse's mum Janice recalls the last words the singer said to her

17 July 2021, 17:00

Amy Winehouse Performs For Grammy's Via Video Link in 2008 — Amy Winehouse's mother has revealed their last moments together. Picture: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images for NARAS/Getty

By Jenny Mensah

The mother of the late singer-songwriter has relived the last moments she shared with her daughter ahead of the new BBC documentary, Reclaiming Amy.

Amy Winehouse's mother has shared the last ever words her daughter said to her.

The singer-songwriter shook the music and entertainment world when she tragically died on 23 July 2011.

10 years on from her passing, her mum Janice Winehouse-Collins is set to celebrate her life in a new documentary called Reclaiming Amy, and she's shared their last intimate moments ahead of its release.

Speaking in her own words to OK! Magazine, she revealed: "The day before she died I met up with her at her house and although she had been drinking, she wasn’t drunk. We sat and looked over old photos."

She added: "The whole time we were looking through the photos we were wrapped around each other. Amy had her arms around me and she kept kissing me on the cheek and saying ‘I love you, mummy’. It’s actually my favourite and most treasured memory of Amy because there was a closeness between us.

"I couldn’t have known it would be the last time I’d see her alive but I’m always grateful we had that day and that the last thing she said to me was ‘I love you, mummy’."

The matriarch revealed she still receives letters of condolence from fans, but the family still has to face trolls due the misconceptions surrounding Amy's life and death.

"Amy had so much support and so many interventions; there were so many people supervising her. But she chose her own path. We have suffered from the trolls and the damaging speculation - accusations that Mitch just wants to make money off of his daughter, that we killed her, that we could have done more. It’s completely wrong.

"The same thing happened after Caroline Flack died - everyone was looking for someone to blame. But addiction is a mental illness and that is the true villain in this story."

Janis, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, added: "One thing that is really frustrating is that people still think of Amy as a drug addict because of the sheer volume of images that came out of her during that period of her life. But Amy was probably on Class A drugs for a year and half, which is an incredibly small proportion of her life and does not define who she was."

She concluded: "I want Amy to be remembered as the sweet and talented girl she was. Even when she came home looking like Endora from Bewitched with the big hair and the eye flicks, she was still my Amy. She was always my Amy and she always will be."

Reclaiming Amy airs on BBC Two from Friday 23 July at 9pm and on BBC iPlayer shortly after.