Amy Winehouse’s father Mitch is getting his own BBC radio show – at least for a bit. Starting in September he will fill in for a regular host while he’s on vacation. An interesting Mitch Winehouse tidbit of which I was unaware is that he frequently phones radio call in shows to defend Amy – and apparently has gotten enough of a following to merit a trial shot as a host.

This was generally great news – now Mitch, who seems to be a genuinely good guy (though in a good deal of denial about is daughter) will have something else going on in his life that has nothing to do with Amy. That was the original hope at least.

According to Live News, Amy’s decided to crash her dad’s shot at having a small fragment of his life that wasn’t all about her. She’s decided she wants to give callers advice – yes you read that correctly – on Mitch’s show, and apparently it’s actually going to happen.

Amy Winehouse wants to be an agony aunt on her father’s radio show. The troubled singer is reportedly keen to use her experiences to help others when her dad Mitch co-hosts a BBC London afternoon show on September 1. Station assistant editor Justin King said: “Mitch and Amy are able to work really well together. There isn’t a question this agony aunt can’t answer.”

A source told Britain’s Daily Star newspaper: “Although she often gets herself into trouble, she is very honest, very caring and very perceptive when it comes to dealing with other people’s problems.

“She is sick of all her problems being on everyone else’s lips and really wants to focus on other people for a change. And she can help her dad pick some tracks while she is there.”

However, Mitch has reportedly banned any Babyshambles or The Libertines records due to his dislike of Amy’s friend Pete Doherty, who fronted both bands.

[From Live News]

They say that when you’re dealing with personal issues nothing helps you get out of them like helping others. So maybe there is a trace of logic to all this. But I really doubt it. I think Amy’s just incapable of letting anyone around her get attention for anything good. And she’s sure to stumble in drunk and say some inappropriate things. It’d be nice if she could give some great advice – and maybe she could – but it would all be dependent on her showing up sober. And I think we can all agree the odds of that happening are next to none.

Here’s Mitch Winehouse (with Amy’s mother Janice) posing with wax Amy at Madame Tussauds. A version he can be proud of. Images thanks to WENN.

Amy Winehouse drinking on stage on 7/4/08. Credit: WENN
Amy Winehouse’s long-suffering father just can’t seem to grasp how far gone his daughter is. When Amy had a seizure earlier this week, requiring a trip to the emergency room, he told reporters that it was caused by a “medication mix-up.” Nobody bought it for a second, probably not even the physicians who treated Amy. Now, Mitch Winehouse is saying that the seizure was brought on by a spiked drink. Some unknown person must have slipped some ecstasy into poor, innocent Amy’s lemonade, because there’s just no way the singer would take drugs willingly. Riiiight.

Amy Winehouse’s father is convinced her drink was spiked with Ecstasy before she collapsed in a fit and hospitalised.

Cab driver Mitch was by Amy’s side as she was stretchered out of her Camden home and rushed to A&E on Monday night.

A source said: ‘Mitch is furious. He’s certain someone put E in Amy’s drink - and he’s determined to get to the bottom of it.

‘He is convinced that one of her hangers-on was responsible and he’s waiting for a toxicology report to show what caused her to have a fit.’

The source told The Sun: ‘If his suspicions are proved right, he wants someone to be punished. He is seriously unhappy about Amy’s flat being a stop-over for randoms and wants an end to it.’

Mitch had previously blamed the scare on a mistake with her prescription medication.

[From the Daily Mail]

Maybe, instead of “getting to the bottom” of this fictional person who slipped Amy drugs against her will, Mitch should figure out how to get his daughter into a bona fide, long term treatment center. The day before the supposed spiking incident, Amy was seen carousing late at night, wasted out of her mind. Hardly the picture of someone thinking about getting sober. I feel sorry for her father. Obviously he is worried sick about her, but still can’t face the fact that his daughter is a hard core addict who doesn’t have any intentions of getting sober anytime soon. She doesn’t need anyone to slip her drugs- she’s taking them of her own accord.

Note by Celebitchy: Thanks to The NY Daily News for reminding me of these photos of Winehouse drinking on stage from earlier this month.

Amy Winehouse and drama go together like peanut butter and jelly. If the jelly were made of crack. And the peanut butter were a pipe. Unfortunately Amy Winehouse and drama also go together really well. To say she chases it would be a massive, massive understatement. Amy thrives on it. I seriously doubt she could exist in a state of calm.

Amy’s husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, is scheduled to be sentenced for his role in an assault and bribery of a bartender. Blake plead guilty over a month and a half ago, but couldn’t be sentenced until all of his accomplices had completed their trials as well. Fielder-Civil’s mother is afraid that he’ll be let out of jail soon (presumably being sentenced to time served) and has begged the judge not to allow her son to be anywhere near his wife. Georgette Fielder-Civil is absolutely convinced Amy led Blake down the dark path, even though pretty much everyone with two brain cells to rub together believes the opposite.

Amy Winehouse’s mother-in-law is speaking out against the troubled singer - and blaming the 24-year-old for her son’s drug problems. “I don’t want him to go straight back to Amy,” Georgette Fielder-Civil told Britain’s News of the World of her incarcerated son, Blake Fielder-Civil, who is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday. “If he does it could be a death sentence for the two of them.”

Georgette has written a letter urging a judge to keep her son away from his wife. “Giving him and Amy another chance is like putting a gun to Blake’s head while playing Russian Roulette,” she said. But Winehouse’s father, Mitch, has repeatedly blamed his son-in-law for getting Amy into hard drugs. “Everyone knows that — apart from Blake’s mum and dad,” he said.

According to Georgette, her 26-year-old son wants to be Amy’s “savior” and “has every intention to try to stop the drugs.” Blake, mind you, was photographed earlier this month heating what appeared to be drugs in his jail cell and inhaling the fumes through a tube. Amy is “completely unstable,” her mother-in-law said. “Blake is a recovering addict and he’s not strong enough to resist the temptation.”

[From the Daily News]

If nothing else, I admire Mitch Winehouse for being totally open, honest, and upfront about his daughter’s drug addiction. And he’s often said how fearful he is for Amy – not just that she’ll overdose, but that if nothing else she’s killing herself slowly due to her emphysema-like condition. But he’s never denied that Amy has a problem, though he does seem pretty powerless. But generally, you don’t hear him going on about how it’s everyone else’s fault, unless he’s directly responding to the Fielder-Civil family’s accusations that Amy turned Blake onto drugs.

Considering the depth of her denial, I’d guess that Blake’s mom isn’t doing him any favors. If she can’t be real with him, she’s just enabling and excusing his behavior. I absolutely think it’d be a great idea for Amy and Blake to be kept far away from each other. If there were a way to legally make two people divorce against their will, I’d nominate this couple first. But blaming Amy for Blake’s problems is utterly ridiculous, and probably one of those “pot calling the kettle black” situations.

Amy Winehouse is shown out in Camden late Saturday/early Sunday. The photo description reads: “Amy Winehouse went out to the Monarch pub in Camden, arriving at 2.30am and leaving at 5am. On the way home she stopped at the Esso garage grabbed some flowers and ran off.” D-Listed notes that the flowers are probably for Blaaake.

I can imagine few things more stress-inducing than being connected to Amy Winehouse in any way, shape, or form. Just owning one of her CDs raises my blood pressure significantly. So imagine what it would be like to be Amy’s poor father Mitch. The taxi cab driver has been a constant at her side. He’s managed to be there for her, though he doesn’t seem to be an enabler.

He has said publicly many, many times that Amy needs to clean up her act before she dies. And by most accounts, he’s done is best to look out for her. But it seems the stress is really starting to get to him – Mitch was hospitalized last week over it.

Dealing with a rebellious daughter can take its toll on any parent, but when that daughter is Amy Winehouse, the parent’s survival comes into question. Amy Winehouse’s dad Mitch collapsed and was hospitalized last week, according to Britain’s The Sun newspaper. Mitch, who has attempted to keep his troubled daughter at home following her hospitalization for an emphysema-like condition, has been suffering from stress-related panic attacks, a friend said.

Seemingly unfazed by her father’s illness, the Grammy Award-winner was back to her usual antics last week. The singer was photographed with a white substance in her nostrils following a weekend DJing gig and was spotted smoking a cigarette at Scotland’s T in the Park festival Sunday night - despite her father’s public warnings that smoking can kill his daughter thanks to her poor lung condition.

“Mitch isn’t well,” the friend said. “He has been taking a lot on and has been dedicating himself to trying to improve Amy’s health. But his own health has suffered as a result. She told him not to worry about her – but that’s easier said than done.”

[From the Daily News]

I feel so badly for this guy. He’s constantly photographed accompanying Amy to various clinics, rehabs, and court. He seems to have been walking a very fine line between trying to help and support his daughter while not enabling her. And he’s been doing it for a long, long time.

Mitch wanted to get Amy sectioned (similar to institutionalized) last year to force her into rehab, but was unable to do so against her will. The Daily News makes a really good point – it really says something terrible about Amy’s character – or the extent of her addiction – that the toll it’s taking on her father’s health doesn’t seem to bother her. As devoted as he appears to be, this might be an indication that Mitch needs to step back and not catch Amy every time she falls.

Here’s Mitch Winehouse taking Amy to the Guanabana restaurant in London on June 8th. Images thanks to WENN.