Amy Winehouse’s best friend Tyler James plans to auction off more of her belongings.
Amy Winehouse’s best friend to auction late singer’s belongings
Tyler originally put his auction – which included handwritten song lyrics and Amy’s red bowling shirt – on hold after Amy’s father Mitch contested ownership but he will now go ahead with the sales.
He told The Sun: “I’ve been through hell. I just couldn’t deal with it. Sotheby’s explained to me that due to Mitch’s lawyers contesting ownership, they couldn’t go ahead with the sale and that I needed a lawyer. I felt as if I had done something wrong.
“I loved Amy more than anyone else in the world. I supported her through all the years of drug addiction, self-harm … you name it. I wanted to protect her.
“We had been through so much together, and nothing can take away what we shared – not possessions. I don’t know why he [Mitch] stopped it. He knew how much Amy meant to me.
“Shortly after she passed away, we went to Amy’s place and there were two pillows on her bed. He gave me one of them.”
However, Mitch – who has been administrator of his daughter’s estate since her death from alcohol poisoning aged 27 on 23 July, 2011 – recently lost a high court action against two of Amy’s other friends, who he had claimed had been profiting by selling her personal property at auction.
And Tyler believes their victory is good for him.
He said: “I don’t speak to the girls much any more, but I’m really pleased for them.
“But maybe — and this sounds selfish — I’m much more pleased for myself. I haven’t decided what to do yet, but I will be ringing Sotheby’s.”
Mitch had claimed Naomi Parry and Catriona Gourlay had been profiting by selling Amy’s personal property at auction.
According to the court document, he alleged the two women sent “various items of personal property owned by Amy during her lifetime” to two auctions in 2021 and this year and claimed that by putting the items up for sale “in their own names and on their own behalf” the women “converted” the late performer’s property “to their own use”.
Amy’s estate sought £534,192.90 in damages from Naomi, and £198,041.07 from Catriona, but a judge said in a ruling last month that Mitch “knew all along” about the intended sale.
Judge Sarah Clarke KC said: “The claimant chose to bring an inherently weak claim, pursue it aggressively and relentlessly to the end, and make serious and unfounded allegations against the defendants which significantly damaged their reputations, career prospects, financial security and health.”
Naomi’s costs are estimated to be £715,361 while Catriona’s are £487,132, with Mitch given two weeks by the judge to make the interim payments.
Mitch has also been ordered to pay the pair’s legal costs on an indemnity basis – a situation usually reserved for when one side has behaved particularly badly.
Judge Clarke said that in taking the two women to court, Mitch had “deliberately turned this case into large-scale and expensive litigation, in circumstances calculated to exert commercial pressure on the defendants to settle on his terms”.
She said: “This deliberate course of action was undertaken by the claimant with the aim of damaging the defendants’ reputations and professional prospects in order to force them to settle the litigation on his terms and pay him the proceeds of sale of their items.
“He did so, knowing that they were vulnerable both financially and in status, and that his public allegations and insinuations of impropriety would only increase their vulnerability
“The fact that he knowingly and deliberately did this to two young women who had stood faithfully by Amy, and also by him and his family, and who had demonstrated their honesty and integrity over many years, makes his unreasonable conduct particularly serious.”