Chasing Amy

Amy Winehouse is concerned about her hair. Backstage at a taping for La Musicale — a French TV show filmed on a soundstage in northern Paris — the 24-year-old singer putters over to the mirror in her tiny, windowless dressing room and begins fussing with the Cruella De Vil–style peroxide-blond shocks at the front of her bouffant. She’s sporting her usual goth-barfly look: raccoon mascara, low-rider jeans hitched with a gold belt and a cropped T-shirt revealing her rail-thin midriff and her copious tattooage, including the legend blake scrawled above her heart, a tribute to her husband of six months, Blake Fielder-Civil. She’s never exactly been a picture of health, but tonight she looks especially worse for wear: hunched, heavy-lidded and frail.

“There used to be just one small ginger bit,” she says, tugging at her coiffure. “Now there’s this whole big blond bit. I hate it.” Her words are slow and drawling — she sounds as if she’s trying to speak through a mouthful of molasses — her eyes are clouded.

“Why don’t you just dye it all black?” asks her stylist, Naomi.

“No … ” she says hazily. “One small bit of ginger is what I want.” She sighs and plops down on the couch. She lights a cigarette and turns a drowsy gaze toward Blender; she’s ready to talk. We start by asking if she’ll be recording the follow-up to Back to Black anytime soon.

“Yeah, we’ve got a couple of more bits … I’m writing … ” she mumbles. “On the whole … ” She trails off.

Um … Back to Black was such a personal record — the songs were clearly about your relationship with Blake. Are you still writing confessionals?

“I’m still writing about the dynamics of being in a relationship … Would you like some wine?” she asks, fetching two glasses and beginning to pour. “I believe in relationships,” she continues, “whether it’s your grandmother or your dog … ”

Now her words are slurred, her eyelids drooping. Her head wobbles into a nod. She falls asleep for a second, wakes with a start, mutters and drops off again. The smoldering cigarette in her left hand falls to the floor.

“Oh, God, what is wrong with me?” she asks, coming to. “There’s something wrong with me … ”

We inquire about her brief rehab stint in August. What was it like there?

“You go in and you’re just sat down. They looked at me and said, ‘You’re an alcoholic.’”

And are you?

“No … I don’t know.”

Are you clean these days?

“I take, like, anti- … I take stuff for my depression. Prescriptive stuff. But I don’t take it.”