EXCLUSIVE: Late Singer Tony Bennett Had to 'Live With the Fact' He Could Have 'Saved' Amy Winehouse — 15 Years After Her Overdose Death
Amy Winehouse and Tony Bennett collaborated before her death.
July 22 2026, Published 12:56 p.m. ET
Late singer Tony Bennett was riddled with guilt that he didn't talk with Amy Winehouse about her battle with alcohol and drug addiction before a fatal overdose took her life at 27 years old.
Ahead of the 15th anniversary of her death, RadarOnline.com revisits Bennet's regrets and the collaboration that Winehouse never got to see released.
Inside Amy Winehouse's Death
Amy Winehouse died on July 23, 2011.
Winehouse shot to international fame in 2006 with the release of her album Back to Black. Her popularity didn't slow from there. Known for her iconic voice and memorable style, she was nominated for more than 75 awards throughout her career and even won six Grammys.
Tragically, her time in the spotlight was short-lived. Winehouse battled with substance abuse issues and was found dead in her home in London on July 23, 2011. Her death was ruled to be accidental alcohol poisoning.
Tony Bennett's Regret
Tony Bennett died in 2023 at 96 years old.
A few months before her passing, she recorded a jazz song with Bennett called Body and Soul – her very last studio recording.
It wasn't released until September 14, 2011.
Bennett himself lived until the ripe age of 96 and died on July 21, 2023, but according to a source, he felt terrible for a long time that he hadn't done more for her.
The source claimed he had to live "with the fact that he could have saved Amy by staying by her side," but it "just didn’t work out."
Tony Bennett Remembers Amy Winehouse
Tony Bennett called Amy Winehouse 'engaging' and 'charming.'
In his 2016 book, Just Getting Started, Bennett recalled what it was like working with the late singer.
"Amy was engaging, funny, charming, and utterly professional but a little bit shy," he wrote at the time. "She said she was nervous because she had never recorded a song with someone she considered to be one of her idols."
He also expressed his regrets that they didn't have a conversation about his own struggles with substance abuse in his younger years.
"Should I have told her that I'd contended a little bit with (drugs and alcohol) myself and knew how you can fall into a bad cycle, but I also knew that you could bring yourself back?" the excerpt continued. "Would it have made a difference if someone she considered an idol had said to her something like, 'You're my idol. You are a once-in-a-lifetime talent. Please don't take that from the world.'"
Tony Bennett 'Sobbed' Over Amy Winehouse's Death
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Tony Bennett confessed to battling drug issues when he was young.
When the Rags to Riches singer heard Winehouse had died, he "broke down and sobbed."
"Of all the young people I’ve met over the past 50 years, she sang the right way … She was ready to take a chance, right on the spot, right on the microphone; she knew how to improvise; it was spontaneous and intimate. That’s what I loved about her," he told Telegraph magazine in 2011. "She was a true talent, and she was on her way to becoming a very, very important jazz singer. What a tragedy. It’s heartbreaking."
He also confessed he was "almost the Amy Winehouse" of his own time.
"I was caught up in it when I was younger. When the Kennedys got assassinated and Martin Luther King, our country (America) took a terrible turn, and everybody got wasted," he continued. "In those days I was hiding, I was in a room somewhere getting high, that’s not a correct way to live."
