What happened to Amy Winehouse’s ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil?

As controversial new Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black debuts on Netflix, Katie Strick questions the singer’s alleged soul mate — and what he’ll make of his villainous role

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Amy Winehouse’s soul mate. The troubled ex-husband inspired the singer’s Grammy-winning album Back to Black and divorced her to “set her free”. A “drug addict” and “hopeless heroin addict” who admitted introducing her to the drug and remains — in the eyes of many fans — responsible for her early death from alcohol poisoning at the age of 27.

These are just some of the ways Blake Fielder-Civil has been portrayed. Winehouse first met the tall, sexy, tattooed production assistant in a bar in 2005, married him in a spontaneous Miami wedding, and later divorced after a tumultuous and often violent six-year relationship. Now their relationship is the focus of a star-studded new biopic, Back to Black , directed by Fifty Shades of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson and starring Industry’s Marisa Abela, which hits theaters this Friday.

Back to Black review: Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Amy Winehouse biopic is so bad it’s making me cringe

Former Bafta rising star Jack O’Connell, 32, who starred alongside Emma Corrin in Netflix’s recent adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, plays Fielder-Civil. He spoke ahead of the film’s release this week, saying he spent an afternoon with Fielder-Civil to prepare for the role and that “he was quite open. He spoke very well of Amy. There was something very sincere about the way he spoke, I couldn’t doubt that he loved her”.

ITV

O’Connell also said the singer’s father, Mitch Winehouse, “wanted to attack [him]” during visits to the set, when he saw him wearing Fielder’s trademark hat, necklace and ring.

Unlike previous on-screen depictions of Winehouse’s life, which her father, Mitch, said had made Winehouse “the villain”, the new film was made with the approval of the Winehouse family – fuelling speculation that Fielder-Civil, 41, now known by his surname Fielder, will be the villain in the special.

“I don’t think I destroyed her, no… I find it disrespectful to imply that I was some kind of conniving puppeteer,” Fielder, who is recovering from drug addiction and describes himself as an actor, said four years after Winehouse’s death, adding that he felt like he was “paying the price” for the years he spent with the singer.

Years later, in 2018, he told Piers Morgan that he “always carried a heavy burden of guilt” for what happened to Winehouse, but that, “Amy didn’t do anything that Amy didn’t want to do.

“I feel like I’m the only person who’s ever been responsible and has been since Amy was alive,” he said, referring to the singer’s father, Mitch Winehouse, who previously accused Fielder of “murdering” his daughter.

Fielder — who is now the father of two children with ex-wife Sarah Aspin and is believed to be living in Leeds with a new partner and possible fiancée, Bay Wright — has since said he wants to make amends with Mitch and “genuinely beg his forgiveness.” It is not believed that such a reconciliation has taken place, although Mitch’s ex-wife, Winehouse’s mother, Janis, 66, has defended Fielder, saying their love was “complicated” but “intimate and sincere.”

Fielder was seen getting a new teardrop tattoo — a tribute to Winehouse — during a shopping trip in February, just months after telling Good Morning Britain that he would have done “almost everything” differently in his relationship with Winehouse if he could have it all back, but he could no longer bear the “unique burden” of her death. “I need to stop carrying that cross alone,” he said on her 40th birthday in September.

“I’ve been carrying that burden alone for over 10 years. Honestly, I feel like I’m the only person in that story who has ever taken responsibility, who has ever tried to say, ‘Yeah, I made some big mistakes.’”

So what happened to Fielder, what’s his relationship with the Winehouse family like now — and what would he think of his villainous role in Taylor-Johnson’s film?

From Camden meet-cute to tabloid fodder

Fielder’s absence from public life since Winehouse’s death has certainly been a stark contrast to the period that preceded it. For years, theirs was a love story of enduring proportions: two artistic souls meeting over a jukebox and a pool table in a Camden bar in 2005, in a whirlwind affair that played out in the public eye and quickly became tabloid fodder.

Fielder, a part-time literature student who made a living as a handing out flyers for local nightclub Trash, was in another relationship at the time – but that ended within a month, and he and Winehouse quickly became inseparable. She had ‘Blake’ tattooed on her chest within a week of meeting him. He had ‘Amy’ tattooed behind his ear. Six months later, he left her for his ex-girlfriend and Winehouse released Back to Black, the iconic breakup album that is credited with catapulting her to global superstardom.

Six months later, Winehouse and Fielder got back together, surprising their families with a shock engagement in April 2007. They eloped to Miami Beach in Florida a month later without their families, and Fielder is said to have shouted in the wedding video: “Who’s paying for this? I’ve run out of money!” – fuelling speculation that he wanted Winehouse’s money, which he has always denied.

Back home, Winehouse is said to have tried crack cocaine and heroin for the first time—a moment that loved ones say markedly changed her. The relationship quickly became destructive and tumultuous. Arrests, public arguments, and rehab stints followed, one of which resulted in a now-infamous photo of the couple: he with scratches on his neck; she with smeared eye makeup and bloody ballet slippers, which he later said were from an argument in which he self-harmed.

They claimed they were unhealthily in love; that they would die for each other. “I felt like love was killing me somehow,” Winehouse herself said in old footage.

In July 2008, the couple separated when Fielder was sentenced to 27 months in prison for assaulting a bar owner. He served 12 months.

They divorced in 2009, he claimed it was to “free her” from the tabloids and silence her father, Mitch, who accused Fielder of being a “manipulator”. Fielder went on to have a brief relationship and a son, Jack, with another woman, Sarah Aspin, whom he met in rehab, before resuming a relationship with Winehouse in 2010. He and Winehouse reportedly planned to remarry, but he was eventually jailed for burglary and weapons possession in June 2011. Winehouse had begun dating a film director named Reg Traviss and when Fielder was released from prison, Winehouse was found dead, having been found by her home security guard lying face down on her bed after drinking a large amount of vodka while watching videos of herself performing on YouTube.

Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil were married for two years (Yui Mok/PA)
PA Archive

“I am so devastated… my tears will never dry,” he said when he heard she had died behind bars, a month after he was jailed in 2011 (he had been jailed once before, in 2008). He was banned from attending her funeral by her family, who blamed him for helping Winehouse take drugs and introducing her to heroin despite her own addiction. He later remarried to Aspin and had another child, a daughter called Lola, before they split again.

“She always thought I would end up with Amy,” he has said of Aspin. “When [Winehouse] died, I guess she didn’t intend for me to still be in love with someone who wasn’t there. In a way, it was almost harder.”

A cautionary tale and 13 years in the shadows

The story has long been hailed as a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of fame and drug addiction, and Fielder, who has long been blamed for Winehouse’s descent into addiction, has largely remained in the shadows in the 13 years since. He is believed to be living in Leeds, having been released from the city’s prison in 2013, with numerous media appearances over the past decade — some by choice; more likely not.

In 2015, he told an interviewer that he had quit drugs, attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings and regretted introducing Winehouse to heroin. The candid interview made other explosive claims: that he had met a new girlfriend; that Winehouse had phoned him from prison and told him “It’s always you” before she died; that he was paid by a newspaper to take photos when he visited Winehouse’s grave for the first time — a decision he now says he regrets.

Amy Winehouse with her then-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil

Chicago / PA Photo

“I don’t think I destroyed her, no. I think we found each other and some people need to realise that she had other addictions before she met me. She was not a happy, well-adjusted young woman, you know, and I find it disrespectful to imply that I was some kind of Machiavellian puppeteer,” he said at the time. “It sounds like ‘poor me’, but in a way I sacrificed so much over the years with Amy… I almost feel like I’m being punished… If Amy were here now, she’d still have the same problems. That’s what made her who she is, what made her funny, or fragile, or short, or warm – all the good and bad things about her. That’s who she is.”

The following year, Fielder was reportedly placed on life support after a drug and alcohol binge — the same year he made a brief appearance in Lily Allen’s LDN music video, in which he was seen trying to sell flowers to the singer. A few months later, he publicly claimed Winehouse had “cut herself” in an apparent suicide attempt just eight weeks before her death.

Three years later, days after the eighth anniversary of her death in July 2019, he further angered Winehouse’s family by demanding £1 million in compensation from her estate (he had received £250,000 in compensation after their divorce), with his lawyers arguing that Fielder had been with Winehouse for six years, during which time she released some of her best-selling material. The family said Fielder “deserved nothing”.

Amy Winehouse and Blake leave their home in Camden, London

Joel Ryan / Assistant

“This is someone who spent a lot of Amy’s money while they were together,” a source close to the family said at the time. “He also spent most of their marriage in prison, causing everyone nothing but pain. To give him another penny is outrageous. To say he was benefiting from her fortune is an understatement.”

Just weeks later, Fielder made what many saw as another money-making attempt, trying to sell “never-before-seen” images of Winehouse. In November of that year, he was arrested on suspicion of arson after a fire broke out in his flat in a 16-storey block of flats in Leeds. He reportedly invited his neighbours in to “smoke this crack pipe”.

“I hope they lock him up and he doesn’t come back,” a neighbour is said to have said after his arrest, with others calling him a “problem tenant” on the block. However, Fielder was not charged.

In July 2021, Fielder was in the press again, this time in pictures showing him kissing his new girlfriend, Bay Wright, at a service station while they were pumping up a car tyre. The couple are said to be living together in a two-bedroom flat in Leeds, with Wright confirming she is in a “serious relationship” with Fielder and is “quite protective of Blake”.

“The proposal seems to have come very quickly,” a source told The Sun later that month, regarding the couple’s engagement rumours. “And while Blake and Bay seem smitten with each other, they are actually from very different worlds,” a source said. “Bay was lovely – very normal and down-to-earth. But suddenly she was rubbing shoulders with stars like Pete Doherty, who Blake is still friends with. They kept their romance under wraps for a while. She told friends she was dating a music producer. She was very happy, but those close to her hoped it didn’t move too fast.”

The couple have kept a low profile since then, but Fielder was pictured smiling while walking with a female friend in Notting Hill in June 2022. His next public appearance was five months later, in November 2022, when he appeared at the inquest into his brother Freddy, 27, who died of a heroin overdose in a £40-a-night Leeds hotel after escaping from a psychiatric hospital.

Blake Fielder-Civil mugshot as a young man, 2008
Metropolitan Police/PA

His last public appearance was more than half a year ago, in September 2023, when he gave an interview on Good Morning Britain on what would have been Winehouse’s 40th birthday. “It’s sad but I want to wish Amy a happy birthday. It’s heartbreaking that she’s not here. I think about her all the time, I thought about her this morning when I wished her a happy birthday, she was my best friend. Without certain factors, I think the outcome could have been different. It all happened so quickly with Amy. We were young.”

When asked if he would have done anything differently during the relationship, he replied: “pretty much everything”. He was then spotted outside a Yorkshire supermarket in February with a new teardrop tattoo in tribute to Winehouse, who had a teardrop tattooed on her face while he was in prison in 2008.

Depression, drugs and meeting Amy

So what do we know about Fielder’s upbringing? His parents, Lance Fielder and Georgette Civil, divorced before he could walk and his mother remarried a headmaster called Giles, who Fielder had a strained relationship with. He also had a difficult relationship with his two stepbrothers and became severely depressed, reportedly cutting his wrists from the age of nine.

He studied at Bourne Grammar School in Lincolnshire and started experimenting with drugs during his time there, dropping out of school at 17 and sleeping rough before getting a job in a pub and moving to London. He started hanging out at the club night Trash in Soho and taking cocaine, later working as a music video production assistant. Sometime before he met Winehouse, he was reported taking part-time literature and history of art courses at Birkbeck College in Bloomsbury.

Blake (right) spotted leaving Amy’s house in north London
PA

Fielder met aspiring singer Winehouse four years later, in 2005, at a pub in Camden – and their relationship quickly became serious. Winehouse’s manager Nick Godwyn has since recalled an obvious shift he noticed in her. “Amy changed overnight after she met Blake,” he once said. “Her personality became more distant. And it seemed to me like that was down to the drugs. When I met her, she smoked weed but she thought the people who took class-A drugs were stupid. She used to laugh at them.”

Winehouse’s flat in Camden reported became a hub for musicians and drug-dealers after she met Fielder. Despite introducing her to heroin, he denied claims she had been on the drug for years. “In fact, me and Amy only used drugs together for maybe six months of our marriage, that was it. And, before that, Amy didn’t use drugs.”

For many years, at least, Fielder has appeared conflicted on the subject of his responsibility for the singer’s drug abuse. “Always, always but also I’m not ready to be the only person any more,” he said in 2015 when asked whether he felt responsible. “I feel I am the only person who has taken responsibility and has done since Amy was alive.”

 

Fielder’s mother, Georgette, has since taken part of the blame – for her son’s addiction, at least – on herself, saying she “wasn’t strong enough” to admit her son and daughter-in-law were addicts until it was too late. “He was her drugs mule,” she told The Sun in 2014. “I’ve finally seen him for what he really is — and it has broken my heart… I was in total denial that the son I loved was a hopeless heroin addict. I even watched him swallowing packets of drugs, wrapped in foil.”

In 2007, Fielder attacked a pub landlord and was sentenced to 27 months in prison for assault and then for perverting the course of justice by attempting to bribe a witness to avoid appearing in court. While he was incarcerated, Winehouse reached the height of both her fame and her addiction, selling millions of records and winning five Grammys, including best new artist, song of the year and album of the year. She dedicated her awards to her parents – most famously, “My Blake, imprisoned”. In April 2008, she was arrested for slapping a man who tried to hail her a taxi, and the following month she was caught smoking crack.

Amy Winehouse and her ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil

Yui Mok / PA Wire

Winehouse spent time in St Lucia and rehab and is said to have begun to realise the toxicity of her marriage. Shortly after her release from prison, Fielder filed for divorce, citing adultery and that he found living with the singer “unbearable”. The divorce was granted in 2009, but Winehouse continued to struggle with alcoholism. In June 2011, her European tour was cancelled after a disastrous performance in which she threw her microphone to the floor and stormed off stage. She was found dead a month later.

Tears, tattoos and a new biopic

Fielder is said to have abandoned the second half of her family, Civil, because of the estrangement of her stepfather — and indeed her entire family. He refuses to talk to the press about his children to protect their privacy, but interviewers who have met him in recent years say his tattoos tell a story: ‘Amy’ behind his ear is a reference to Winehouse, ‘Sarah’ on his back and other arm is a reference to Aspin, and there is reportedly a ‘Chloe’ somewhere on his body, along with the names of his two children, Jack and Lola. “Too fast to live, too young to die,” another wrote, supposedly referring to Winehouse.

It is unclear whether that quote is a reference to Winehouse’s early death, but Fielder’s most prominent tattoo is unmistakable: an image of Winehouse, on her forearm, holding a red balloon and crying.

O’Connell admitted that Fielder was “not too keen” to meet him to prepare for the upcoming biopic, because “obviously he’s entering a very private period in his life and he’s nursing a mess of emotions.” But he did meet him anyway, and he was surprisingly open. “He spoke very well about Amy. There was something very sincere about the way he spoke, there was no doubt in my mind that he loved her.” O’Connell will of course be bringing that genuine sense of affection to filming with Abela. So what would Fielder think of the way their relationship is portrayed on screen? One clue might lie in his comments about his previous on-screen roles. “I feel like maybe, since the last film about Amy came out about two years ago, the documentary [Amy], there’s been a certain shift in blaming other parties,” he said in 2018. “But I feel like before, before—and probably still now—I’m the only one who’s responsible.”

This latest biopic probably won’t help that feeling. The question now is whether he chooses to speak out.