Overview

A moving, intimate look at the life of Amy Winehouse by her best friend.

The death of icon Amy Winehouse at age just twenty-seven rocked the music world. Through the headlines the world thought they watched a car crash: a girl hell-bent on self-destruction. But the truth is far more complicated.

Now, her best friend and constant companion Tyler James wants to tell the real story, because she can’t. From their first encounter singing together at stage school, through to their wayward teenage years and Amy’s dramatic rise to stardom, Tyler was with her through it all.

Living with her right up until her death, he was the only one there by her side, day-after-day. He supported her through her career highs—the massive success of Back to Black and her five Grammy wins—and personal lows—her lifelong struggles with addiction, insecurity, and eating disorders.
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Written with love, My Amy is a heartbreaking look at friendship and fame and provides an illuminating portrait of the woman behind the music—a unique, uncompromising force-of-nature. 

This is the definitive story of what really happened to Amy Winehouse.

Reviews

"Unflinchingly honest, My Amy is a personal, beautiful, raw account of friendship, love, and the price of fame. One of the most accurate accounts capturing the relentless grind of the music business at any cost, James does not glamorize the corporate machine that made his best friend a global star nor create a saint of Winehouse, instead providing a familiar if ghastly recognizable portrait of the realities and mechanism of celebrity. Breathtaking in its bravery, My Amy is essential though often not easy reading." —Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, author of Being Britney: Pieces of a Modern Icon and You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico
 

"A warm and heartfelt rare insight into Amy's life, the likes of which even fans close to her story won't have yet experienced." —Hannah Ewens, author of Fangirls: Scenes from Modern Music Culture

“‘My Amy is a genuinely shocking, tell-all memoir, albeit suffused with real love. . . . Yet the sense that it is a story James actually needs to tell ensures it never feels like exploitation.” —Daily Telegraph

“Vividly honest” —Mail on Sunday

“Heartbreaking” —Times (London)

“Raw, intimate” —Sunday Times

“Raw is a word that can get overused when describing memoirs or autobiographies. Not in this case. This book is drenched in grief and love in equal measure. The author's voice was strong throughout and it was an intense read at times. One of the best books I’ve read in a long time and gives you a different understanding of Amy throughout key moments of her life.” —Abby, Goodreads

“My Amy is an intimate, deeply moving, and emotionally charged memoir that is both heartbreaking and tragic, but also lighthearted and funny at certain parts. Tyler introduces us to a side of Amy that we never got to know in this book, and I believe he captured her essence well throughout." —Sean, Goodreads
 

“[I]t succeeds as an exploration into the day-to-day struggles of drug addiction, alcoholism, and bulimia.” — Third Coast Review

Author Biography

Tyler James is an English singer and songwriter. Tyler has been sober for twelve years and now works with addicts as a speaker, using his personal experience to help families and individuals in the fight against addiction. Tyler lives on a farm in Ireland.