Amy Winehouse’s Boyfriend Fires Back About New Documentary ‘Amy’

REG TRAVISS: Yes my interviews are not featured, but it would also seem that the insight into Amy as a person and my explanations of certain events which took place such as the circumstances of her show in Belgrade—which I afforded to the documentary makers—were disregarded, whereas even without the inclusion of my audio-interview the documentary makers could have still drawn upon what I had given them in their overall depiction.

How in particular do you feel Asif Kapadia mischaracterized Amy?

REG TRAVISS:I feel that she was mischaracterized in many ways but generally I feel that Asif wanted the documentary to follow a familiar, seen-before-and-expected narrative — that of the Sid and Nancy type of rise-success-shambolic fall — and so in order to make that narrative fit with Amy’s life he had to censor and in some instances completely omit parts of her life, relationships, and even her character. The sheer existence, let alone inclusion in the documentary, of these key areas of Amy’s life completely contradict the narrative he wanted to craft, and so he whitewashed anything which opposed his story, and in doing so he mischaracterized Amy as consequence. I can speak with certainty of what became the last two years of Amy’s life, and the way in which the footage of her has been edited in the documentary is just not how or who she was.

Asif is a documentary maker, he is not a film director making a drama with creative licence in regards to the story, and this is an important distinction; he uses real life archive footage and edits it into an order alongside audio-interviews—he was effectively Amy’s biographer with a professional responsibility to produce a truthful depiction of her and her life, but he manipulated his material beyond what is acceptable for the medium of a documentary biopic. The censorship, distortions and omissions he sanctioned meant that whilst he could craft his desired narrative the natural by-product was a misrepresentation of Amy herself.

What about how she was presented has been “fictionalized” and “distorted” as you have previously claimed?

REG TRAVISS: There are many key things, such as the portrayal of how she performed with Tony Bennett at Abbey Road; in the documentary only a short clip of footage is used and the clip gives the impression that Amy was either unable or unwilling to perform in a professional manner alongside Bennett. This was not the case at all in real life and in my opinion is a slur upon her. It was clear that Asif had specifically chosen a moment of footage which would give this negative impression — to support his narrative — instead of using any of the rest of the footage which would have showed the reality of the session and of Amy as a great artist alongside another great artist. In addition the documentary never refers to the success of that duet and its recording. There is an overall depiction of Amy as a performer during the 2010 to 2011 period presenting her as a singer who no longer performs and either has no interest or perhaps no ability to perform during what became her last years; but she did an acclaimed tour of Brazil, she played a concert in Dubai, she played in London, she played in Belgrade, and did many impromptu appearances in various music venues during this time — all were praised except Belgrade — and Amy performed these shows because she loved music and because she was in control of herself. However, the documentary chose only to depict the ill-fated Belgrade show, without any mention or even reference to any of the acclaimed shows which preceded it. It was a totally distorted representation of Amy as a performer and a fictionalised account of her life at this time.