Winehouse Out of the Sick House
Amy Winehouse is out. Time will tell if behavioral changes are in.
A rep for the “Rehab” singer confirms to News that the 24-year-old was officially discharged as a patient from the London Clinic yesterday after a whirlwind stay, which included a diagnosis of early stages of emphysema and two days out to perform at various gigs around England.
“I can confirm that Amy has left the London Clinic and will be treated as an outpatient,” Tracey Miller said.
As an outpatient, Winehouse is expected to return to the hospital for regular checkups. Despite her father’s initial public diagnosis of emphysema, Winehouse’s camp later clarified the singer is suffering from early-stage symptoms of the chronic respiratory disease.
Winehouse was first admitted to the hospital last month after suffering a fainting spell at her home. She was apparently deemed well enough to be excused from the ward on two high-profile occasions, which had two rather varied rates of success.
The first saw a healthy-looking Winehouse take the stage at Nelson Mandela’s special 90th birthday concert, in which she sang two slur-free tunes before returning to the clinic.
The second was more in line with a performance fans have come to expect from the Grammy winner, and took place over the weekend at England’s famed Glastonbury festival. After her performance, a concertgoer threw a hat at her head and, after mistakenly identifying the offending chapeau tosser, Winehouse lashed out and belted a seemingly innocent fan. All of which was, in the great British tabloid tradition, caught on tape.
On the bright side, things can only get better.
Winehouse Dad’s Overblown Diagnosis
Turns out Amy Winehouse’s pop is the one blowing a little smoke these days.
The singer’s rep is saying that the 24-year-old Brit does not have emphysema, as her father told Britain’s Sunday Mirror over the weekend.
Rather, she has “early signs of what could lead to emphysema,” rep Tracey Miller said Monday.
Mitch Winehouse was only speaking “out of his concern for her” when he told the press that his little girl was suffering through the early stages of the chronic respiratory disease.
Winehouse was hospitalized last Monday after fainting outside her London home and remained on bed rest throughout the week while doctors performed various tests to identify the cause of her collapse.
“With smoking the crack cocaine and the cigarettes her lungs are all gunked up,” the Grammy winner’s dad told the Mirror. “There are nodules around the chest and dark marks. She’s got 70 percent lung capacity.
“To think this could be my beautiful 24-year-old daughter’s life is preposterous. But if drugs mean more to her than breathing properly, then so be it. But the doctors have told her if she goes back to smoking drugs it won’t just ruin her voice, it will kill her. It’s been a tough week.”
But apparently there’s hopeand Mitch Winehouse seems to be looking on the bright side now.
“Amy really hasn’t got emphysema, there’s traces of emphysema,” he told BBC Radio 1 today, downgrading his earlier remarks. “Obviously, if she doesn’t quit smoking, it’s going to get worse, like everyone else…with patience, her lungs will recover completely.”
“With no more inhalation of smoke of any kind, she’s going to be absolutely fine.”
The elder Winehouse also maintained that, barring any unforeseen complications, his daughter will be able to perform at this weekend’s Glastonbury Festival, as well as at Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday celebration Friday.
Kanye Booed at Bonnaroo
The Bonnaroo boobirds were out in full force for Kanye West this weekend.
The Grammy winner walked onto the festival stage nearly two hours past his scheduled 2:45 a.m. performance time Sunday morning and was greated by bleary-eyed fans’ chorus of boos and chants of “Kanye sucks.”
West was originally set to kick things off at 8:15 p.m., but because he wanted to make the most of his Glow-in-the-Dark Tour’s lighting show, the hip-hopster’s camp asked to push back the gig to 2:45 a.m. following Pearl Jam’s show.
However, the Seattle grunge rockers’ gig lasted an hour longer than planned, with Eddie Vedder and bandmates not wrapping until 1:15 a.m. Then there was an extended break while Pearl Jam’s roadies disassembled the band’s stage and West’s crew set up his own elaborate backdrop, a glow-in-the-dark spaceship along with undulating black platform and raised video screen.
Organizers posted a message via Jumbotron that the “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” rapper wouldn’t be taking the stage until 3:15 a.m., then 3:30. When 4:15 a.m. rolled around and still no West, the antsy crowd began hurling glow sticks at the stage and screaming anti-West sentiments. Bonnaroo officials didn’t help the matter, not informing festivalgoers why the changeover was taking so long.
West finally made his entrace at 4:30 a.m., but by then, many exhausted attendees had had enough and returned to their tents.
Apparently, they didn’t miss too much.
Judging by online reviews, West’s performance didn’t stand out from the 150 acts performing at the four-day musical campout. In fact, it was a yawner.
“He was two hours late, cut his show short, didn’t once acknowlegde the crowd that waited two hours on an already late show, not even a wave goodbye…I’m no longer a Kanye fan, huge disappointment,” one fan wrote at the music blog Stereogum.com.
“It’s not the stage hands’ fault; that stage was set up for well over an hour before Kanye decided to grace us with his presence,” wrote another attendee on VillageVoice.com. “The next time he holds that finger up and proclaims himself as #1, I hope someone tells him what he can do with that finger.”
Per festival reports, West failed to even acknowledge his tardiness.
The bad vibes carried over to Sunday’s daytime slate, when during his set pedal-steel guitar virtuoso Robert Randolph groused about West’s behavior, prompting fans to reprise the “Kanye sucks” chant.
There was no immediate comment from the West camp.
R. Kelly Case Goes to the Jury
Sitting through reruns can be such a drag. Or it can just be really uncomfortable.
The eight-man, four-woman jury sitting in judgment of R. Kelly rewatched the sex tape at the center of the R&B star’s child-pornography trial before beginning their deliberations Thursday.
As part of their closing argument today, prosecutors replayed the 27-minute video, which they allege features Kelly having intercourse withand then urinating ona girl who was only 13 or 14 years old at the time.
Kelly is “directing her to dance, where to stand, when to stop urinating,” Assistant State’s Attorney Robert Heilengoetter told the jury as the video played.
There were no shocking statements in either side’s final summation of the case: The prosecution pressed for a conviction on all charges, which could land Kelly in prison for up to 15 years. The defense continued to argue that Kelly has been the victim of money-hungry acquaintances and is not the man on the tape.
Multiple witnessesfriends and relatives of the now 23-year-old alleged victim (who has since denied being the girl in the video) and former associates of Kelly’shave positively identified the “stars” of the home movie as Kelly and the female in question. Forensic video analysts also testified that it was highly unlikely the copy of the tape being used to prosecute Kelly was a fake.
Meanwhile, the Grammy winner’s team put its own expert on the stand, and he pretty much said anyone can do anything with computers these days. A private investigator spoke on Kelly’s behalf as well, saying the fiancé of the woman who attested to having a threesome with Kelly and the girl had tried to extort $300,000 from the singer to keep quiet.
“That’s what this is about: money, money, money,” defense attorney Sam Adam Jr. said during his closing argument.
The people who testified that it was Kelly on the tape, Adam continued, know it wasn’t himbecause “any solid man in that family, any solid woman in that family would have gone over there and broken his legs, would have gone over there and beat the crap out of him.”
Deliberations kicked off Thursday afternoon. After about an hour and a half, jurors asked for a transcript of purported threesome participant and “star witness” Lisa Van Allen, per the Chicago Tribune.
Both sides objected, saying the request was unreasonable because it would take several hours to print out a copy and delete sidebar dialogue. The defense, meanwhile, is pulling for the jury to get a copy, while the prosecution thinks they should have to review a transcript of the entire trial or get nothing at all.
Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan sent the jury a note informing them that the transcript was not available at the time and that they should continue deliberating.