Amy Winehouse’s gravestone in Edgwarebury, a Jewish cemetery in north London, is full of names. He shared it with his maternal grandmother, Cynthia Levy, who had also been a jazz singer in her youth. “Forever in the hearts of his family,” we can read on the stone. In front there is a sculpture of a book with two pages full of names that do not belong to family members, but to very close friends who also wanted to be recorded with the soul star for eternity. Two of them are those of Naomi Parry and Catriona Gourlay, two friends who shared an apartment and a life with the singer before her fateful death on July 23, 2011, at the age of 27. However, 14 years later, Amy’s father, Mitch Winehouse, sued them because, he claimed, they had auctioned off the artist’s belongings that did not belong to them.
The origin of the legal dispute, which continues this Tuesday with new statements from Mitch Winehouse, dates back to 2021, when the media around the world reported an auction of more than 800 objects of the singer offered by her family. It was a huge success and raised around $4 million in total, much of which went to the Amy Winehouse Foundation. But the auction and its profits are now the subject of an investigation at the High Court in London, after Mitch discovered around 150 of the items were sold by Parry and Gourlay without the family’s permission.
Those items included the dress designed by Parry – she and Winehouse had known each other since they were 19 and she was his personal stylist from 2006 until her death – that the singer wore to the final concert of her career, in Belgrade. Its guide price was $20,000 at auction, but it ultimately sold for $243,000, or around 208,700 euros. There were also the boots that Winehouse wore for the cover of her first album, franc (2003), sold for 19,200 dollars – 16,500 euros –; or a pair of blood-stained ballet slippers that she wore after a fight with her ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, sold for around $4,000 (3,400 euros). There was a greeting card from music producer Mark Ronson and singer Adele, which Gourlay claims to have received when Winehouse was absent from her own birthday party in 2008 – it sold for $3,200, or around 2,700 euros; or a pink lipstick and black eyeliner described in the auction as “owned and worn by Amy Winehouse.”
Mitch Winehouse estimates his daughter’s two friends got around £730,000, which he is now asking them to donate to charity. The singer’s father claims Parry and Gourlay “deliberately hid” the items at two celebrity memorabilia auctions in Los Angeles, with which the family intended to raise money to build a school in his daughter’s memory on the Caribbean island of St Lucia. Mitch, who inherited his daughter’s multi-million dollar fortune in 2011, expressed his anger during a civil trial on Monday (December 8) in London, and denied that Amy gave all of the items to her friends, saying they were part of her estate.
“It was only after the end of the 2021 auction that Mr Winehouse discovered that Miss Parry and Miss Gourlay were claiming that between them they owned more than 150 auction lots and that they intended to keep the proceeds of the sale for themselves,” his lawyer, Henry Legge KC, argued in court. “They have repeatedly insisted on their complete transparency during the pre-auction process, but their statements are completely inconsistent with the documentation,” he added. It refers, according to Daily Mailto a few text messages exchanged between auctioneer Darren Julien and Parry. “The last dress sold for $190,000 (£142,000). I think Mitch thinks this dress belongs to him,” he said. “Amazing!! I’m not sure how he will feel when he realizes that’s not the case,” she replied. “He definitely thinks it’s his,” Julien added. “It shows he doesn’t know much about Amy’s affairs,” Parry concluded.
Actresses Sadie Frost and Kelly Osbourne testified on behalf of Amy Winehouse’s former roommates, saying the singer actually gave them all of those clothes and accessories. Gourlay met Winehouse when they were teenagers in 2002 and they shared a flat in Camden between 2004 and 2005, the court heard. Gourlay worked at Rokit, a clothing store ancientand brought home clothes which they shared and exchanged. “Her good taste in fashion helped shape Ms. Winehouse’s image as she neared the height of her fame. These items were not expected to be of great value at the time. When items were traded and loaned, especially early on, they were not done so with due regard to their heritage value,” said Gourlay’s lawyer, Ted Loveday. As he told the court, many of the items in dispute never belonged to Winehouse and others were gifts from the singer between 2003 and 2011. Additionally, he argued that his client spent the money from the sales to pay off debts, renovate her apartment and pay for medical bills, while Winehouse’s father is a multimillionaire.
Gourlay herself, who also testified during Monday’s trial, appealed to the sentimental component. “Naomi and I have known Mitch for a long time and have had a very close relationship with him and the rest of Amy’s family since his passing. Naomi and I have devoted a lot of time and energy to working with Amy’s family to continue her legacy,” he said. He, for his part, declared that his daughter was “generous to a fault.” “I guess I would have given them some things, but I don’t think it was 150,” he said. His lawyer denied that the complaint was the result of jealousy and greed. He said his client knew of his daughter’s generosity and the close relationships between these three women, and guaranteed he would withdraw his claim if he could prove he owned the items. He also assured that his client would reach an agreement if he donated 30% of his profits to his daughter’s foundation.
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