Blake Fielder-Civil, who was married to Amy Winehouse from 2007 to 2009, is living in a bedsit in Leeds and ‘never speaks about her’ as his ex-partner Sarah Aspin found deadFrances Kindon Head of Features (Audience), Niamh Kirk Lifestyle Writer and Ruairi Scott Byrne Audience Editor
10:46, 14 Feb 2026
Amy Winehouse and husband Blake Fielder-Civil (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)
The scent of cannabis lingers in the corridors, and drug dealers are a common sight in the hallways, yet this is now home to Amy Winehouse’s former husband, who reportedly ‘never speaks about her’.
Blake Fielder-Civil’s current life in a cramped bedsit within a graffiti-marked tower block stands in stark contrast to the affluence he once knew as Amy Winehouse’s spouse.
The one-time music video assistant first encountered the Back to Black star in 2005, and they were wed from 2007 until 2009.
However, whilst their destructive relationship fuelled some of the singer’s most celebrated tracks, their marriage met with widespread disapproval.
Amy Winehouse (right) and husband Blake Fielder-Civil(Image: Jon Furniss/WireImage)
From their initial meeting, friends observed a dramatic transformation in Amy.
“Amy changed overnight,” Nick Shymansky, Amy’s first manager and a close friend, told the Telegraph.
“For six years she was completely consistent and then all of a sudden it was like dealing with a different person. There were glimpses of the Amy I knew right up until the end, but something really changed. My view at the time, and my view now, is that she was intoxicated with heavy drugs as soon as she met Blake.”
Indeed, Amy – who would begin her performances chanting ‘Class A drugs are for mugs’ – rapidly descended into a world of heroin and crack cocaine alongside video production assistant Blake. “She’d be talking gibberish. And then all of a sudden she had a stammer. That was the thing that really upset me.”
Amy Winehouse and husband Blake Fielder-Civil watch the show at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2007 at the Olympiahalle on November 1, 2007 in Munich, Germany(Image: Dave Hogan/Getty Images for MTV)
Blake, who had relocated from Lincolnshire to pursue his career in the capital, confessed to introducing her to heroin, telling Jeremy Kyle: “I was smoking it on foil and she said can I try some and I said … I might have put up a weak resistance – the fact is whatever I said she did end up having some. I have to be really sort of conscious about what I say, I don’t want to feel like I’m shirking responsibility.
“Of course I regret it, not just because of the damage it’s caused Amy and the loss of life, but the damage to her family but also to my family and also to me.”
Amy was completely besotted. Within just a month of their first encounter, she had a tattoo inked above her left breast depicting a pocket flap with the word “Blake’s” written above it, reports the Mirror.
However, circumstances took an even more troubling turn shortly afterwards when Blake rekindled things with a former girlfriend. Devastated, Amy’s alcohol consumption spiralled, while her management’s efforts to persuade her into rehabilitation were, as is well documented, firmly rejected.
Amy Winehouse and husband Blake Fielder-Civil attend the launch dinner of The Row hosted by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, at Harvey Nichols on October 9, 2007 in London, England(Image: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)
“Up until probably March 2006, not long before Back to Black was recorded and delivered, it was a nightmare,” Shymansky added. “There were lots of arguments, lots of passionate conversations. It was absolutely clear to me that she wasn’t well and she needed help.”
By April 2007, the couple had reconciled, tying the knot in Miami the following month.
As their substance abuse spiralled out of control, they were photographed looking battered and bruised, roaming the streets of Soho in London. She suffered a collapse after taking a ‘speedball’ of cocaine and heroin with Blake, requiring emergency hospital treatment including an adrenaline injection and stomach pump.
“Amy looked like a skeleton because she was so thin,” a friend revealed to The Mirror at the time. “She was foaming at the mouth and fitting for about a minute… River Phoenix died from an overdose after a speedball, so Amy is really very lucky to be alive.”
Amy Winehouse and husband Blake Fielder-Civil(Image: Kevin Mazur/WireImage)
Blake allegedly abandoned her hospital bedside to obtain more drugs, triggering a massive row with Amy’s father Mitch. The pair entered rehab together later that year, but come November, he received a 12-month prison sentence following a 2006 bar brawl.
In April 2008, Amy reportedly admitted to being unfaithful during his incarceration, prompting him to file for divorce shortly afterwards.
Following their separation, Amy managed to kick crack and heroin but remained dependent on alcohol. Blake returned to rehab, where he began a relationship with fellow patient Sarah Aspin.
Yet despite the divorce – and welcoming a son called Jack with Sarah – his connection with Amy was anything but finished. Sarah even issued a stark warning to Amy to “keep her hands off” Blake, declaring: “He is mine and we are a family now.”
However, tragedy struck just days afterwards when Blake started a 32-month prison term for burglary and firearms offences in 2011 – Amy was discovered dead in her bed from alcohol poisoning.
Fifteen months on, Blake himself was placed in an induced coma following a drug overdose, though he ultimately recovered.
Sarah’s fate proved equally heartbreaking, as she was found dead at her council maisonette in Leeds, West Yorkshire, last weekend.
Alongside son Jack, born in 2011, she and Blake welcomed daughter Lola-Rose in April 2013, but both children were subsequently placed for adoption after his concerned mother Georgette Civil contacted social services.
Blake Fielder-Civil and Amy Winehouse attend the MOJO Honours List awards, recognising career-long contributions to popular music, at The Brewery June 18, 2007 in London, England(Image: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images)
In her memoir ‘Letting Blake Go’, Georgette recounted: “I looked down at Jack in his pushchair and thought, ‘I can’t condemn you to a life with junkies’. We went to see Lola. I held her in my arms for the first and last time. I kissed her goodbye and walked away from her, Blake and Jack, feeling as if my heart was breaking. I knew I would never see any of them again.”
She continued: “I rang social services and betrayed my own son. I told them Blake was still a drug user and that I had provided clean urine samples. Blake phoned me two days later. He was crying, screaming and pleading with me to withdraw my statement – but I didn’t. I never heard from my son again and I know I never will.”
In 2021, Georgette suffered the devastating loss of her other son Feddie, 27, to a heroin overdose after he absconded from a mental health unit and checked into a £40-per-night B&B in Leeds.
The police are currently investigating the death of 47-year-old Sarah. In a heartfelt tribute, Georgette confessed that she suspects Blake is oblivious to the fact that the mother of his children has passed away.
Blake Fielder-Civil’s relationship with Sarah Aspin was the inspiration behind Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black album, and life has taken all three from that toxic love triangle down a tragic path
“It’s absolutely tragic – truly tragic. [But] I would have thought Blake doesn’t know,” she shared with the Daily Mail.
Blake is thought to have parted ways with Sarah and is now residing in a dilapidated bedsit in Headingley, Leeds. Local residents describe the area as being plagued by drug use, but say that Blake – who once worked on music videos for Lily Allen – ‘keeps his head down’ and ‘never talks about Amy’.
One neighbour commented: “Blakey is alright, he keeps himself to himself. But from what happened with Amy, and where she took him, to where he is now. It’s crazy.”
They added, “He keeps his head down. He’s not an issue. But other people are up to all sorts.”
However, The Sun has reported that he hasn’t been spotted there for three months and is rumoured to have moved in with a new girlfriend. It’s a heartbreaking turn of events for a man who was once a privately-educated pupil with a world of opportunities at his disposal.
Following Amy’s death in 2011, Sarah shared her heartbreak.
She visited him in prison shortly after the news and said: “He is devastated and shattered. He just can’t take it in that she’s dead and he’ll never see her again.
Blake Fielder-Civil, husband of British Singer Amy Winehouse, arrives at the High Court London on November 24, 2008. Blake Fielder-Civil, who tried to cover up a vicious attack on a publican, lost an appeal against his sentence in London.(Image: CARL DE SOUZA/AFP via Getty Images)
“Blake rang me on Saturday after the prison authorities told him she’d died. I just couldn’t console him. He was in total shock. Blake is the father of our son. But I saw him and Amy together and I know they were really in love and they were soulmates.
“She always loved him and he always loved her – but it was just never going to work. Basically they couldn’t live with each other and they could not live without each other.”
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