Photo: WENN
Amy Winehouse's mother, Janis Winehouse, has suggested that her daughter may have had Tourette's syndrome in her recent memoir.
Amy Winehouse, who rose to superstardom with her 2006 album Back To Black, died of alcohol poisoning in 2011, after suffering from drug and alcohol addiction and an eating disorder for many years. She was just 27-years-old.
Her musical and cultural legacy, as well as the multi-faceted reasons for her mental health issues, have been dissected in many ways in the four and a half years since her death - most recently with Asif Kapadia's acclaimed documentary Amy.
Now, Winehouse's mother Janis is adding to the roster with a memoir, Loving Amy, A Mother's Story. In an excerpt from the book published by People magazine, Janis writes, "I think that she was a special-needs kid in that she was so intelligent. She was so gifted, living in a world where she just wasn't average, where she didn't quite fit in. But it was a great life lived."
She adds, "She could well have been almost Tourette's, where she would just shout things out. We just do not know."
Tourette's syndrome is a neuropsychiatric disorder characterised by physical and vocal tics. Though its most commonly known trait is the shouting out of obscene or socially inappropriate words, this symptom is actually present in only a small minority of people with the disorder.
Meanwhile, Amy's father Mitch is working on his own project relating to his daughter. After expressing his unhappiness with Kapadia's documentary (unsurprising, given how poorly he comes across in it), he's decided to make his own film.
