[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Another tragedy tied to Amy Winehouse… with some heartbreaking similarities…
Fans of the Rehab singer know all too well about Blake Fielder-Civil (above, inset), the longtime on-again, off-again boyfriend she married in May 2007. Their toxic and sometimes violent relationship was covered extensively in the media both before and after her passing. Even though she had long since left him by the time of her death in 2011, Blake was very much in the spotlight afterward. Amy once told CNN their “whole marriage was based on doing drugs” and he had even been quoted saying he introduced her to heroin and crack. She kicked harder drugs after their split — but died just a couple years after the divorce of an overdose of alcohol. Blake was seen, probably fairly, as a terrible influence on the doomed diva.
Now he’s adjacent to yet another tragedy. We’ve just learned his younger brother, Freddy Civil, was found dead last year, also of an overdose.
Related: Amy’s Alleged Ex-Lover Claims Singer Was Struggling With Her Sexuality
The upsetting news was revealed during an inquest at the Coroner’s Court in Wakefield, England on Tuesday, according to DailyMail.com. Blake, now 40 years old, was reportedly in attendance.
Freddy was sentenced to prison back in 2018, but a judge had him detained under the Mental Health Act at a medium security mental health hospital called Newton Lodge instead after he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (this was later determined to likely be induced by substance abuse rather than an inherent mental disorder). Freddy escaped from the Wakefield, West Yorkshire facility while being taken to do some banking on April 26, 2021. That night he was found unconscious face down in a hotel room. He was already dead when authorities arrived.
Like Amy, he was also 27 years old.
According to the coroner, while Freddy was found to have choked on his own vomit, his death was assured by an enormous overdose of heroin. His toxicology report showed he had “fatal levels of morphine” even for a regular addict, as medical examiner Lisa Barker testified:
“It might be survived by someone who regularly took heroin, because they build up a tolerance, but it might even have overdosed a chronic user. It was in the fatal range, even for somebody with a history of taking heroin.”
His friend testified that Freddy had injected the dose himself. It’s unclear if he knew he was taking too much.
Freddy’s mother, Georgette Civil, testified during the inquest that she had serious concerns about how her son was being treated at Newton Lodge. She said his weight had nearly doubled in the three years he’d been incarcerated because they didn’t let him get enough exercise. He had also complained about abuse:
“Freddy raised a complaint of staff abuse and he needed two-to-one staffing. He was strip-searched by staff who made him perform squats while he was naked from the waist down. Staff also called him a pedophile.”
It sounds like a horrific situation for anyone — and it doesn’t appear Freddy was in the best mental health before being put there.
Just a tragic situation all around.
If you or someone you know is experiencing substance abuse, help is available. Consider checking out the resources SAMHSA provides at https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline.
[Image via WENN.]
