Entertainment- Amy Winehouse's relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil is dramatized in the biopic "Back to Black."
- Winehouse and Fielder-Civil met at a pub and were married from 2007 to 2009.
Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil's tumultuous relationship is reexamined in Sam Taylor-Johnson's new film "Back to Black."
Winehouse and Fielder-Civil's connection was immediate upon meeting at The Good Mixer pub in Camden in 2005. But their on-again, off-again relationship was a bumpy ride that was highly documented by paparazzi and tabloids in the early 2000s.
The couple married in Miami in May 2007, but divorced in 2009 as Winehouse's drug and alcohol addictions worsened. The singer died of alcohol poisoning on July 23, 2011, at 27 years old. Fielder-Civil was in jail for burglary at the time.
Winehouse's sophomore album "Back to Black," inspired by her breakup with Fielder-Civil, is still regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time.
Here's what Fielder-Civil, now 42, has been up to recently.
Since Winehouse's death, Fielder-Civil has expressed regret for introducing her to heroin
In interviews, Fielder-Civil has spoken about Winehouse first using heroin in his presence. During an appearance on "The Jeremy Kyle Show," he said that they "used heroin together as addicts for like four months" before he went to jail.
"I regret it, not just because of the damage it's caused Amy and the loss of life, but the damage to her family but also to my family and also to me," he said.
Fielder-Civil is now the father of two children that he shares with his ex Sarah Aspin, whom he met in rehab: a son named Jack (born in 2011) and a daughter named Lola (born in 2013).
Fielder-Civil told Complex in 2016 that it was difficult to find work in the years since Winehouse's death, and his notoriety has resulted in him being spit on in public.
Fielder-Civil called 'Back to Black' 'therapeutic'
Many of Winehouse's fans condemn Fielder-Civil for introducing her to heroin and criticize her father, Mitch Winehouse, for not sending her to rehab earlier (which is cemented in the lyrics of her song "Rehab," in which she sings, "Daddy thinks I'm fine").
But "Back to Black" doesn't paint either of the men as villains. In the biopic, Fielder-Civil is shown from Winehouse's perspective, so the film primarily focuses on the qualities that drew her to him and the love they shared.
Fielder-Civil wasn't involved in the production of "Back to Black," but he did spend an afternoon with Jack O'Connell, who plays him in the movie.
"I think he's definitely very misunderstood," O'Connell told People magazine.
"I think he's just very honest about his fallibility, and I think that's his strength, and he's a very endearingly honest person," O'Connell continued. "But anytime he spoke about Amy, he just lit up, started glowing, and that told me that whatever was happening between them was very genuine."
While appearing on "Good Morning Britain" in April, Fielder-Civil said it was "surreal" to watch "Back to Black," but called it "almost therapeutic, in a way."
"There were some parts of it that enabled me to feel like I was seeing a more accurate representation of the relationship, not in the sense of being let off the hook or whitewashed as alluded to in the comments people have made, just in the sense it wasn't all about addiction," he said.
Fielder-Civil said that he's been clean for years and has tried to take responsibility for his influence on Winehouse's trajectory.
After watching the biopic, Fielder-Civil said he would be open to talking with Winehouse's father and family.
"Mitch is a father, I'm a father," he said. "I understand his position on me, I really do. But I hope that he would see that there was genuinely love there."