{"id":337344,"date":"2025-12-09T14:43:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/337344\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T14:43:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:43:14","slug":"amy-winehouses-father-sues-two-of-singers-friends-over-auctioned-items","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/337344\/","title":{"rendered":"Amy Winehouse\u2019s father sues two of singer\u2019s friends over auctioned items"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Breaking<\/p>\n

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\"Breaking<\/p>\n

Two friends of Amy Winehouse<\/a> \u201cdeliberately concealed\u201d that they sold a number of her personal items at auction after her death, barristers for the singer\u2019s father have told the High Court.<\/p>\n

Mitch Winehouse<\/a>, acting as the administrator of his daughter\u2019s estate, is suing her friend Catriona Gourlay and stylist Naomi Parry for hundreds of thousands of pounds over claims they profited from selling dozens of items at auctions in the United States in 2021 and 2023.<\/p>\n

Ms Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning in July 2011 aged 27<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for Mr Winehouse told a trial on Monday that the two women did not inform him they were selling the items, and the legal proceedings were his \u201conly means of obtaining answers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Parry and Ms Gourlay are defending the claim, with their barristers stating that the items were either gifted by Ms Winehouse or were already owned by them.<\/p>\n

Henry Legge KC, for Mr Winehouse, said in written submissions that the items included a silk mini-dress worn by Ms Winehouse in her final performance in Belgrade, Serbia, which Ms Parry auctioned for 243,200 US dollars (\u00a3182,656) in 2021.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cMs Parry and Ms Gourlay deliberately concealed from Mr Winehouse the fact that they were auctioning the items consigned by them to the 2021 auction and that they were claiming ownership of those items.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued that Mr Winehouse believed that all the 834 items in the 2021 auction catalogue were owned by the estate, but that the two women were \u201casserting ownership of over 150\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Ms<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Ms Parry and Ms Gourlay say Winehouse gifted them the items or they already owned them (PA Archive)<\/p>\n

The barrister also said that Ms Parry was \u201cinstrumental in persuading Mr Winehouse to auction the estate\u2019s items\u201d, but did not tell him that she \u201cstood to gain from his agreeing to do so\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Legge said that after Ms Winehouse\u2019s death, Mr Winehouse was approached by Darren Julien, of Julien\u2019s Auctions in Los Angeles, in 2014 regarding an auction of her belongings, which Mr Winehouse initially declined.<\/p>\n

Mr Julien then contacted Ms Parry, who indicated that she would be willing to sell \u201cmy collection\u201d in 2018, with Ms Gourlay indicating she would be willing to sell items in 2019, Mr Legge said.<\/p>\n

Mr Winehouse then agreed to auction items in 2021, which raised around 1.4 million dollars (\u00a31.05 million) for the estate, with 30% of the proceeds going to the Amy Winehouse Foundation.<\/p>\n

But Mr Legge said that Mr Julien \u201cdid not take steps to correct Mr Winehouse\u2019s obvious impression that all lots belonged to and were being sold by the estate\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Mitch<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Mitch Winehouse is administrator of his late daughter\u2019s estate (Ian West\/PA)<\/p>\n

The barrister also said that Mr Julien told Ms Parry in a text message after the auction: \u201cI do think he will go a little nuts when he realises all the big pieces were yours\u201d.<\/p>\n

He continued that both women then sold further items at a second auction in May 2023.<\/p>\n

A hearing last July was also told by Mr Winehouse\u2019s lawyers that Ms Parry had sold around 50 items at the 2021 auction for around 878,183 US dollars (about \u00a3682,000), and Ms Gourlay had sold around 90 items, for a total of 334,113 dollars (about \u00a3259,000).<\/p>\n

Giving evidence on Monday, Mr Winehouse said: \u201cI assume that, being so close, Amy would have given them some things, but 150 items, I just cannot believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In written submissions, Beth Grossman, for Ms Parry, said that her client became Ms Winehouse\u2019s stylist in 2006 and stayed at her property in Camden, London.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cBoth defendants contend that the vast majority of the disputed items were in their possession from before Amy\u2019s death in 2011, and in many instances from years before her death.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoreover, each defendant alleges that a number of disputed items had, in fact, always belonged to them and had only ever been loaned by Amy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In written submissions on behalf of Ms Gourlay, barrister Ted Loveday said that his client \u201cbelieved, and still believes, that the sale of the items is \u2018what Amy would have wanted\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said that Ms Gourlay met Ms Winehouse in 2002 and was her flatmate from 2004 to 2005, with the earlier years of their relationship characterised by \u201csharing and swapping\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Loveday continued that after 2006 and the release of Back to Black, Winehouse \u201cincreasingly gave away items\u201d to Ms Gourlay and others as part of \u201cextravagant acts of generosity\u201d.<\/p>\n

The barrister also said that Mr Winehouse had \u201ccobbled together\u201d his claim in a \u201cthoughtless and uncritical way\u201d, and that he was \u201cmore concerned with protecting his reputation and punishing Ms Gourlay and Ms Parry for some sort of, entirely imagined, slights\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Loveday also said that while the case originally concerned 156 items, Mr Winehouse had \u201cabandoned\u201d his claim to some.<\/p>\n

The trial before Sarah Clarke KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, is due to conclude later this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-337344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}