It wasn’t drugs that killed Amy Winehouse. It was tons and tons of booze.
It was announced today by a legal inquest looking into the death of the “Back in Black” singer that she had more than five times the legal driving limit of alcohol in her blood when she died on July 23 at age 27, Reuters reports. St. Pancras coroner Suzanne Greenway found that Winehouse “had consumed sufficient alcohol at 416 mg per decilitre (of blood) and the unintended consequence of such potentially fatal levels was her sudden and unexpected death.”
Even more tragic? The London hearing states the singer had not drank alcohol that month until the day before it killed her. She had no illegal substances in her system when she died.
Winehouse battled drug and alcohol addiction throughout her life but in an October 2010 interview, she said she had been drug-free for three years, saying, “I literally woke up one day and was like, ‘I don’t want to do this any more.’”
However, the troubled singer battled many additional health problems, including emphysema, and checked back into rehab on May 25th of this year, presumably for alcohol abuse. At her last performance, held in Serbia this June, Winehouse appeared drunk and had a hard time standing. Her management then canceled all future performances. She died a month later.
Her family, who was present at today’s inquest, didnt’ talk to press but released a statement stating: “We understand there was alcohol in her system when she passed away — it is likely a build up of alcohol in her system over a number of days,” the family said. “The court heard that Amy was battling hard to conquer her problems with alcohol and it is a source of great pain to us that she could not win in time. She had started drinking again that week after a period of abstinence.”
