Alex James is very convinced that Rehab singer Amy Winehouse will be dead within two years - and would be "surprised" if she lives any longer. The bassist is worried for the star and British musician Pete Doherty, who have both had much publicized battles with drugs and alcohol. And James is insisting that he doesn’t expect the pair to live to see 2010, unless they get urgent help.He tells Britain’s Daily Mirror, "I’d be surprised if Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse both live to see the decade out. You know, it’s not funny. "I’ve been in situations where my best friends have been killing themselves (with drugs) and they won’t listen… It is scary."
Photo By: Sara De Boer/Retna
Comedian and Actor Russell Brand paid touching Tribute to friend Amy Winehouse
The pair first met on London's gigging scene, through mutual friends.
Russell Brand said: "When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they've had enough, that they're ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it's too late, she's gone."
Speaking about their first encounter Brand said: "When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends."
At the time,
Russell Brand was barely out of rehab and failed to notice that they both shared an affliction, "the disease of addiction".
On hearing her sultry voice for the first time at a Paul Weller gig Brand said: "I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal."
"My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I'd only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound."
Brand finished up his post with a plea to addicts suffering the same as Amy was.
He said: "Now
Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease."
"Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there."
