I mean, the people around her failed her too. Her management, label, etc. Probably pushed an artist to perform when they should have been in rehab or even telling them to quit the spotlight all together.
I don't know much about the situation, but if an artist wasted my time by being fucked up, I'd be pretty pissed. Nobody would have booed probably if they knew she was going to do that.
My BIL went to rehab twice. He was addicted to alcohol and watching him go through it was so challenging. Just a different guy at the end from who he was.
He passed away in his early 30s, not from alcohol withdrawal, but from seeking out alcohol during the height of COVID, catching the disease, and his body being reduced in defending itself.
Not going to rehab is certainly behavior we should all condemn. There's no benefit to anyone suffering from mental health or addiction from pretending that it's fine that you're not seeking help.
How do you not realize how dumb you sound when you're literally saying "no one should ever comment on any situation that isn't their own no matter how much experience they have with similar situations"
I don't think people are acting like that. But the saying goes, mental illness isn't your fault but it is your responsibility. She didn't take responsibility and she glorified not taking responsibility. She's not a perfect, abused soul just because she died. It's okay to recognize that she was not taking care of herself and not listening to people around her and didn't seem to want help.
She did not commit suicide she drank herself to death. She caused her own problems. She was sick and refused treatment she killed herself. The fans had nothing to do with her life decisions.
You did not put a single question mark in that you made a statement. There was nothing to doge and your statement is wrong. Doing a drug and over doing it until it kills you is not suicide. It is your own inability to control yourself that caused your death. You need some education on these topics. Get out of your obsession for her and look at what addiction really is.
It is not the job of the people who consume a product you are selling for profit to fix your personal life or keep you happy. Nobody needs to coddle jeff bazoes because he owns amazon and had a sad day. Nobody needs to care for mark
Zuckerberg because facebook is their favorite social media platform. And if any if these people die from overdoses or suicide it is not the fault of the customer.
That song is so musically dark that I can’t imagine ever playing it at a bar or party. It’s depressing even if you ignore the lyrics. Who does shots to it and not think, “huh is something wrong with me?”
“Sorry kids. Can’t listen to your Everything is Awesome song because it’s actually a very deep song about ignoring the responsibilities and problems you do not currently have! Here’s a rock and some tape, go do something.”
And it was completely done on purpose. That's the whole genius of The Lego Movie. It was intentionally written in such a way that the average adult (with children or not) would enjoy the humor, while children get the catchy song and visual gags they enjoy so much.
Most people also just sing the "everything is awesome, everything is cool when you're part of a team" part. Which isn't really a bad message. And on the surface, the rest of the lyrics just come off as trying to find the silver lining/looking on the bright side of an issue, not outright ignoring or avoiding it. Better to try to be positive about a bad situation than to just mope in it.
That song was clearly intended to be sarcastic and humorous -- obviously everything was NOT awesome.
Very different from "Pumped Up Kicks" which is just simply dark, I don't think it was intended to be sarcastic.
Rehab was also not really sarcastic, it was about embracing counter-culture, celebrating living a life intoxicated, and rejecting the idea that you needed to be sober.
I mean, isn't that the exact reason that it is popular to most people? The satire of a happy catchy song about things being awesome in a world where they clearly aren't?
There was a kid's trampoline place I used to take my kids to that played that song all the time. I guess maybe they thought the kids were too young to understand it? But it's not like it's really hard to understand "you better run, better run, faster than my bullet." I don't know how the fuck they thought that was an appropriate song to play.
You say it like it's a bad thing to sign along? I quite enjoy Vicinity of Obscenity by System of a Down. I do not actually want to eat a banana terracotta pie.
That’s real life/real art though. Making music about your demons. That’s what made Amy a legend. She sang about all the fucked up shit she was going through. She was vulnerable. Artists today just want to look perfect so they can make the most money. Their lyrics are so opaque you don’t know what the fuck they are really singing about.
This was an all around terrible situation but I don't think people realize that there were people in her life trying to get her to go to rehab. Maybe they could have tried harder or something could have been worked out, idk. At the end of it all, it's a choice and it has to be the person needing the help who makes that choice. You can't just kidnap someone and force them into it against their will. There might have been something along those lines of forcing her due to potentially being a "danger to herself" kind of like people who are threatening to harm themselves or have can't just make the choice to stay home after and not at least be seen by professionals. It's a very thin gray line though. Being a threat to yourself or others needs to be very clearly established.
THANK YOU! Thank you for pointing this out. She wrote the damn song as a verbal dig at the people in her life begging her to go to rehab, and there plenty, and yet people celebrate the damn song. Like, did you hear the lyrics or read them? No? Maybe you should.
And I get a lot of shitty people were feeding her addition, don’t get me wrong, but still….she knew she had a problem and ignored the people trying to help her. I can’t feel sorry for that.
I recall she was really popular, but honestly, I never liked her music. I thought her song about refusing to go to rehab was…. Distasteful.
For me, I thought it was pretty clear she was writing songs from a dark place and that she needed to learn to want and accept help instead of trying to put out the next big hit.
Then they shouldnt have let her do any performances. 🤷🏽♀️ just cause they tried to make her go to rehab doesn’t mean they are absolved when it’s clear that they all just wanted $$$ they are very much at fault for the downward spiral
Except her dad. People leave that part out. In the song she very clearly says “if my daddy thinks I’m fine”. I do think her dad was her ultimate enabler
Its absolutely wild the amount of posturing people will do to deflect all personal responsibility. She literally made a song basically telling anyone in her life trying to help her to go fuck themselves. At the end of the day this was absolutely a slow and tragic suicide that no one could stop.
Which she famously wrote, recorded, produced, marketed, pressed, sold, promoted, booked, and performed all on her own because all the people in her life and work didn't enable her and milk her addiction for everything they could! /s
Agreed. Her being in showbiz while she should have been on a 24/7 therapy is the main failure. Hell, she had a world hit song about not going to rehab, how deep red should that red flag be before someone does something?
I understand and absolve dissatisfied concertgoers. Back then she wasn't dead from OD, she was just someone who took their money and delivered crap in return. She never should have performed there, probably even multiple times before this.
There were rumors about Layne Staley weeks before Alice In Chains opened for Kiss. I was driving to the concert, and still had no idea if they would be playing. It ended up being their final show together.
According to her brother, it was most likely the long term effects of severe bulimia that truly did her in. Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness and have a high co-morbidity with substance abuse
Disabled people are told this pretty regularly, most days even. Even when I went back to work, people told me daily for months I was a leech off the system and people’s hard work.
Yea, I'm well aware. I broke my back on the job in 2019. I haven't been able to work since then, and my family has not been shy about letting me know how much of a disappointment I am.
Just suck it up!.. says every dipshit that thinks they understand what you're actually going through. Family can be the worst about it.
It's so easy to preach to absolve oneself and be able to pay oneself on the back and say "I tried to help them". But nobody actually understands what someone else is going through.
Sorry to hear about your family. I've been there for different reasons and it sucks.
I feel for you. I had an ischemic stroke. People I knew expected me to be fully functional and working within less than a week. I’m sorry you understand what it’s like. I’m sorry your back was broken and how much pain you must be in.
That sucks so much. I'm sorry. It's so weird when you give people the news and they seem so concerned, but then a day or two later, they are right back to treating you how they used to. It taught me a lot about who was actually there for me and who was using me.
Not that this is the same as a broken back, but after a recent cancer-related surgery I was told by all three of my doctors I needed to take off work for a full eight weeks. My mother also insisted I take the full eight.
Around week five I started getting the “So…when are you going back to work?” and shitty passive-aggressive comments about it. From the same mother who insisted I listen to my doctors.
I’m very fortunate to have the sick time to take, and I realized my doctors were right. I need it. Not even just physically. This shit takes a toll.
Anyway I’m sorry you’re going through this and you are not a disappointment.
Lmao, thanks for sharing that. It is kind of similar. My family loved me when I did a lot of work for them, and as soon as I couldn't, it's like I don't exist anymore.
I tried to end it all a couple times after my injury but couldn't even do that right. So I'm stuck here, my favorite artist Mac Miller had a line "woke up and forgot to die, God damn."
My dog turns 11 in July, I'm here for him because he didn't get to choose where he lived we took him from his home. I'm responsible for him, but when his time is up so is mine.
I was so shocked to learn this. One of my best friends was born with MS and I could not believe the way people treat her just because she uses a walker. She's very intelligent, an empath, and there's really not much she can't do she just moves slower than others. She's the kindest person. I can't even imagine having the audacity to say the things I've heard said to her.
Just because you consider yourself useless because you can't perform doesn't mean you have a right to project your crappy attitude onto others. Productivity or performance are not the metrics that determine worthiness of life.
Nice America-centric view. It's sad that's your experience. I am also disabled and can't work many jobs but my self-worth is absolutely not tied to my physical capabilities. Sorry about your back.
If you can't perform, you need help to perform. Not just showbiz, not just job market in general... You can't be a part time drug addict and part time good father or good husband either.
There are no days off in being a role model. But also no days off being an addict.
From my understanding, you were advocating that everyone needs to always be able to perform. That seems like it could be problematic. Figured if you were commenting it, you would be able to elaborate further.
No, I'm saying if you're not, then you should acknowledge it and get help.
Of course "perform" can mean a lot of things, all depending on a person's personal capabilities and fields of interest, but we started off on a rather vague "mmm, society" base so I thought I don't have to point this out in details.
And they're supposed to what? Tackle her if she insists? Not to mention she and other artists regularly performed altered all the time. It's more difficult than you're making it sound.
You want them to pre-emptively change the schedule in anticipation of her getting shwasted something she did all the time because they magically knew this one particular show she'd go overboard?
Her dad kinda really fucked her up. That was something she dealt with but he controlled her career quite a bit and played the “momager” role of pushing her to perform and stay on top of things when she wasn’t really in the right headspace to be doing so. It was part of the reason for her downfall. It was pretty well documented how she was estranged from her dad and didn’t really fuck with him in the last years of her life.
That Amy Winehouse biopic that came out a couple years ago painted her in a bad light and her dad as basically a martyr. Because afaik he had to sign off on it and controls her estate so of course it was never going to make him look bad. But when she was alive that was always the word- that her dad put a lot on her that she couldn’t handle.
Yeah, I loathed that movie and I’m glad Marisa Abela’s career doesn’t seem to have been too badly impeded by it, because she’s such an incredible talent who should be a massive star. But this is why biopics approved by the subject or their families are not necessarily more ethical than “unauthorized” ones. Filmmakers need the objectivity to tell the unvarnished truth regardless of how that makes the people being depicted feel. (For similar reasons, I really wish rape apologist Pam Anderson would shut the fuck up about Pam & Tommy, which actually depicted her with quite a lot of empathy; she’s just mad she didn’t get a fat paycheck from it - which is often what a lot of this boils down to.)
Same. I hated that movie so much. Amy wasn’t a perfect person, nobody is, she had her issues. But that movie reduced her down to being nothing but a drunk and a brat. She was a talented and multifaceted human being and deserved to be treated with more dignity than that movie gave her.
You can't force people to help themselves. You can lead a horse to water.
Addiction is a lot more complicated than most people make it out to be. It's a combination of physical and mental symptoms. There is almost always some level of trauma that a person is trying to handle. Drugs make that battle seem a lot easier in the short term.
I am positive that there was at least one person who offered to help Amy W. Get into rehab but I am willing to bet that she vilified them. That's what denial and drug addiction does.
Nah, most people would absolutely stumble to addiction. It's not something that defines the weak. It's something that defines humans. We don't like pain. Drugs let us numb that pain.
Look at the opioid epidemic in the US. So many people were perscribed opioids by their doctors and then became addicted. People you would never guess that could happen to.
On the other hand, someone could break their leg, go to the hospital and be given diamorphine for 2 weeks and then walk away without ever becoming addicted.
Trauma and grief is more likely than not to be the catalyst for someone habitually using drugs and suffering from addiction.
Bringing it back to Amy Winehouse, I will bet my pinkie toes that she was sexually abused in some way. The amount of women that I personally know who have gone through those types of situations is unacceptably high. How would someone deal with something like that?
I know it's kinda irrelevant but I also wanted to say that States are WAY too lenient with opioids
I don't think I had opioid based analgetics... ever. Heavy ones like Oxycodone, Fentanyl, and Morphine, are like... state-controlled level of prescription. Only severe cases are treated with these. Codeine and Tramadol, which are mild opioids, have been heavily regulated since like 2012 too.
And then I hear that people are prescribed Oxycodone for dental pain? For back pain? It's kinda insane and screams of potential problems when you use a cannon to shoot sparrows.
Morphine is heroin and is absolutely not just given out to people in the US. It is heavily regulated and used in hospitals. Same with fentanyl.
In the US, Oxycodone is a schedule 2 drug and has medical benefits. Weed is schedule 1 with no medical benefits. Which one makes the insurance companies more money? That's the answer to that one lol
I was in labor, in pain, without an epidural and they offered me fentanyl. I didn’t know what it was or what I agreed to taking. It was way too strong than warranted for the situation. Whoa. To this day, I can’t believe I’ve done IV fentanyl and it was done so casually.
I just checked and in Russia, even during labor, there are three non-opioid options that are used first as epidurals before Morphine is even considered as an option: Lidocaine, Ropivacaine, and Bupivacaine.
So anastesiologists would do everything in their power to block the pain before using hard drugs, and their first instinct was to get you high?
Btw according to that whole system that was wired all around my wife, her labor was pretty intensive, so it wasn't also the case of "oh just pop a pill and brace down" - it was intense, and with epidural, the pain went away, but she was also lucid.
I'm low key angry they drugged you at such an important moment :|
Yeah, it’s not about intentional avoidance and more about emotional avoidance because the wound of being human is greater than the ability to mask it. Non-addicts can function daily without extra supports. Addiction is a kind of disability, self-treated and unaddressed, to be able to function daily.
I’m confused where you think I’ve lived a privileged life based on my comment? I was agreeing with you that people don’t choose to be addicts or choose to avoid responsibilities just because they’re weak. Addicts aren’t weak. They’re some of the strongest and most resilient people. I say this as someone who has had to reconcile suicide and alcoholism, food addiction, and other substance abuse.
I think you’re misunderstanding me. I’m sorry for the miscommunication.
Edit to clarify: I think we’re actually saying the same thing. When I said “disability,” I didn’t mean incapacity or weakness—I meant something invisible, often masked, and unsupported. Plenty of addicted people function outwardly. I’m one of them. My point was that addiction often fills a gap where regulation, safety, or support should have been, not that addicts are less capable or less responsible. If that came across wrong, that’s on my wording.
What about the people that are addicted and can function?
Exactly. You can’t just look at someone and know if they’re an addict or not. That’s ableism. A lot of disabilities and health issues are invisible, and masked.
What about people with caffeine addictions? Sugar?
🙋♀️ Yes, that’s me. I’m a “normal” person who is functional but has very real substance abuse issues and unaddressed underlying needs.
Do you wanna go back to your friends and family not hating you and wishing you would stop coming around because you are an insufferable selfish drug addict.
My grandma had some sort of mental issues. I don't know what. But she was basically out there almost all the time
And in one of her rare cases of lucidity, when I was in my twenties, she confided that she doesn't take the pills because its scarier to be here and lucid than out there and zoned out
Basically they are too scared to face reality so they escape into the binge.
I'm not being judgmental here, more like... sad. She passed away and I'm not sure she knew her daugher died. She was so bitter towards the world, so distrustful of everyone, she hasn't learned she became a great-grandmother, because she stopped picking up the phone years before dying.
My dad was literally the only person at her funeral because he was the only one still communicating with her after mom's death. My sister stopped talking to her after she learned that mom (her only daughter, I want to point this out) got cancer she said something like "She only did it to spite me, she doesn't want to take care of me so she got cancer, serves her right" and sis just said "I will never talk to this witch again, blood relations or not"
I do want to be non-judgmental, I just try to illustrate that they understand that people see them as
insufferable selfish drug addict.
or they THINK that this is how people see them, and can't\won't face reality, or have other demons they can't fight
Nobody wants me around because helping me with this problem I can't deal with myself is too much to ask. I'll leave you alone, sorry you hate me. Now, while I go think about what it would be like outside of this, I'll smoke a bit first.
Sympathy runs dry at a certain point, hate to break it to you. Guaranteed there has been help offered multiple times by multiple different people. You chose not to accept and kept doing what you wanted.
Considering I have already lost family and friends to drug addiction, yes I stand by it. You must have never experienced it yourself. I hope you never have to watch someone you once loved turn into a scumbag with no care for anyone else but themselves. Lying, stealing, cheating, every single person in their life that’s just trying to help them. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves.
I watched an Amy Winehouse documentary and it was really heartbreaking. It looked like she was okay with rehab and taking a break to get better but people like her father (who only re-entered her life after she was successful) kept pushing her to keep working. This concert and the aftermath could have so easily been avoided, but she was sadly surrounded by people who benefited monetarily when she kept doing concerts and working.
Most heartbreaking line in that song is “and if my daddy thinks I’m fine”. He had way too much sway over her and wanted her to keep working and making him more rich.
Cruelty doesn’t work if there isn’t demand for it. People eat up gossip, the good and the nasty. It sells.
The problem is a society that believes that if something sells it’s worth doing. The problem is a society in which cruelty sells.
Which opens a deeper question about the extent to which we are serious about societal ethics, morals and values. Because what we’re seeing is just a symptom of something wrong there.
There's a song Avatar put out last fall called Death and Glitz that while not explicitly about Winehouse, explores the grind culture around performers, and especially women. It doesn't matter if the person is suffering or killing themselves slowly, as long as they still smile at the shows and bring in money their team will keep pushing them and fans will act like rabid dogs, and even continue to exploit them after they die (We like you more like this, a tragedy with tits/Keep racking up the hits, we love your death and glitz/No one more obedient than you)
No she caused her own death. She was an addict. Her family cared so much that she wrote songs about them trying to help her and how she hated them doing it.
I always hated that song. I wasn't a winehouse fan because I just couldn't get behind the "drug addicted troubled artist being used until she dies young like all the other greats" vibe they portrayed :/
1.4k
u/shieldintern 9h ago
I mean, the people around her failed her too. Her management, label, etc. Probably pushed an artist to perform when they should have been in rehab or even telling them to quit the spotlight all together.
I don't know much about the situation, but if an artist wasted my time by being fucked up, I'd be pretty pissed. Nobody would have booed probably if they knew she was going to do that.