AMY WINEHOUSE Inside her final day

THE SINGER’S BEST FRIEND REVEALS WHY NOBODY COULD SAVE THE TORMENTED STAR

- Sara Tapia

Next month, people around the world will remember and celebrate the life of Amy Winehouse on the 10th anniversary of her death on July 23. To coincide with the occasion, her best friend Tyler James has opened up about the pair’s close relationship in his new book, My Amy: The Life We Shared, and how hard he fought to save the singer as she battled with drug and alcohol addictions.

Winehouse and James met in their early teens while training at the Sylvia Young Theatre School. They both pursued careers in music and their early 20s were fun-filled and carefree. But that all changed after Winehouse’s promotional and touring commitments wound down for her first album, Frank, in late 2004. “If you were 22 and someone said, ‘Here’s a couple of hundred grand, you’ve got the year off work, just think about a new album,’ what would anyone do?” James writes in the book.

The star began self-medicating with alcohol, often heading down to her local pub before midday where she would down “a black Sambuca shot every 20 minutes”. But drinking was just the beginning of Winehouse’s problems. “She found that if you drink steadily throughout the day and stay just a little bit drunk, then everything’s dandy,” James reveals in the book. “But that’s where alcoholism starts. And if you’re daytime-drinking, you start to meet people who do hardcore drugs.”