Amy Winehouse Dead: Ex-Husband Denied Release to Attend Funeral

Update, July 28: Fielder-Civil's current girlfriend told The Sun that Blake never requested a release to attend Winehouse's funeral.

"He did not ask to be at Amy's funeral," Sarah Aspin is quoted in The Sun.

"There is no way he would want to be there in handcuffs. He has too much respect for Amy and her family to do that."

Amy Winehouse's ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil was not among those in attendance at the singer's private funeral in London on Tuesday.

A family spokesperson had earlier announced that the funeral would be "a family and close friends affair." Producer Mark Ronson and close friend Kelly Osbourne - who wore her hair in a beehive as a tribute to Amy's signature look - were among mourners present.

Sky News reported that Fielder-Civil was not granted compassionate leave to attend his ex-wife's funeral. Blake is serving a 32-month prison sentence for burglary and firearm possession.

A Metro report indicates that Amy's ex would not have been welcome at the funeral even if the prison had let him out for the day. Amy's father, Mitch Winehouse, is believed to want Fielder-Civil far away from his daughter, even in death.

"Mitch thinks it would be a complete insult for him to be there and if he really loved Amy, he wouldn't cause any more heartache by showing up," Metro reports a source telling The Sun. "'He will always believe Blake is responsible for getting his daughter hooked on Class A drugs which marked the beginning of her self-destruction."

A private funeral service at Edgwarebury Cemetery in North London was expected to be followed by a cremation and a family gathering.

Contrary to a common misconception, while Jewish law forbids tattoos, a person with tattoos is not prohibited from having a Jewish burial, according to The Jewish Chronicle.

Both Amy's parents are Jewish, and the singer sometimes wore a Star of David around her neck.

Winehouse, 27, was found dead in her north London apartment on Saturday afternoon.

Friends said that soulful singer had engaged in "wild drinking" in North London in the days preceding her death.

In what is acknowledged to be her last public appearance, Winehouse joined her protégé and goddaughter Dionne Bromfield onstage at the iTunes Festival on Wednesday evening. Winehouse didn't perform herself, but danced and clapped along to Bromfield's performance. At Bromfield's prompting, she pitched in to the chorus of 'Mama Said', but her voice was barely audible.

"There was always a danger of something like this," another friend told The Mirror. "Her drinking is totally out of control. She's constantly out of ­control on vodka. She'd drink bottle after bottle and ­mixing those ­quantities with drugs is lethal."

But Kelly Osbourne - who spent an hour on the phone with Winehouse the day before she died - did not at all see this coming.

"I was speaking to her last night, she seemed ­absolutely fine, I don't understand how this could have ­happened," Osbourne told the Mirror.

Winehouse had spoken to her security guard, Andrew Morris, on Saturday morning at about 10 am, and told him she wanted to go to sleep. That is believed to be her last conversation.

When Morris went to wake her several hours later he found her dead.

"Rigor mortis had set in," a source told The Sun, "indicating she is likely to have been dead for anything up to six hours."

Police sources told the UK newspaper that there were no signs of drugs at the house.

Witnesses had earlier reported seeing Winehouse buying a variety of drugs in Camden around 10:30 pm on Friday night. A source told The People that the singer bought cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine and possibly heroin.

"Amy seemed determined to have a big one on Friday night," the source said. "She was out in Camden on Friday evening, but seemed determined to carry on the party back at her flat.

"None of us know who was with her into the early hours of Saturday. But getting out of it was clearly her main priority of the night."

Amy's family told The Sun these reports were "nonsense."

Amy had seen a doctor on Friday evening, and she received a clean bill of health.

She had been getting regular checkups because of the overall toll her lifestyle had been taking on her body.

"The doctor was happy with her condition," a source told The Sun. "When he left on Friday night he had no concerns. Less than 24 hours later she was found dead."

"Amy was on her own at home apart from a security guard who we had appointed to help look after her over the past couple of years," PR rep Chris Goodman told The Sun.

"At this stage no one knows how she died. She died alone in bed."

Amy saw her mother, Janis Winehouse, the day before she died, and Janis was concerned for her well-being - as she often was.

"She seemed out of it. But her passing so suddenly still hasn't hit me." Still, Janis Winehouse felt that it was "only a matter of time" before tragedy took her young daughter.

Winehouse's father, a jazz musician and part-time taxi driver, was in New York City when he heard of his daughter's death. He had been scheduled to perform at the famous Blue Note jazz club. In what may have been Amy's last public comment, she wrote "I'm very proud of my dad," in an email to the New York Post on Friday.

Her father, who immediately returned to London upon hearing the news, is "devastated" by the loss.

A few days before her death, Mitch Winehouse also spoke to the New York Post about his daughter.

"Frankly she's had her ups and downs," he said.

"Our family has been left bereft by the loss of Amy, a wonderful daughter, sister, niece," Amy's family said in a statement.

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