Amy Winehouse’s ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil is reportedly living in a bedsit in Leeds after separating from Sarah Aspin who was found dead at her council homeTom Kershaw Head of Live News, Niamh Kirk Lifestyle Writer and Frances Kindon
08:28, 14 Feb 2026
(Image: PA)
The scent of cannabis lingers in the corridors, and drug dealers regularly patrol the hallways, yet this is now home to Amy Winehouse’s former husband, who ‘never speaks about her’ anymore. Blake Fielder-Civil’s existence in a cramped bedsit within a graffiti-daubed tower block is unrecognisable from the affluence he once experienced as Amy Winehouse’s spouse.
The former music video production assistant encountered the Back to Black artist in 2005, and they were wed from 2007 until 2009. However, whilst their destructive relationship fuelled several of the singer’s most famous tracks, their partnership received little approval. From their first meeting, friends claim the Amy they recognised vanished, reports the Mirror.
“Amy changed overnight,” Nick Shymansky, Amy’s first manager and close confidant, revealed to 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’ – was rapidly drawn into the realm 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.”
Blake, who had relocated from Lincolnshire to pursue a career in London, acknowledged 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.”
(Image: Getty Images)
Amy was besotted. Just a month after their first encounter, she had a tattoo inked above her left breast depicting a pocket flap with the wording “Blake’s” above it.
But matters took an even darker turn shortly afterwards when Blake returned to an ex-girlfriend. Devastated, Amy began drinking more heavily than ever, but her management’s attempts to persuade her into rehab were famously rejected.
“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 and tied the knot in Miami the following month.
As their substance abuse intensified, photographers captured them looking battered and bruised whilst roaming the streets of Soho, London. She was rushed to hospital for an adrenaline injection and stomach pump after collapsing following a ‘speedball’ combination of cocaine and heroin with Blake.
“Amy looked like a skeleton because she was so thin,” a friend told 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.”
Blake allegedly departed her hospital bedside to obtain more drugs, causing a significant row with Amy’s father Mitch. The pair entered rehabilitation together later that year, though in November he received a 12-month prison sentence following a 2006 bar brawl.
(Image: JTBBEBDB)
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 quit crack cocaine and heroin but continued struggling with alcohol dependency. Blake returned to rehabilitation, where he began a relationship with fellow patient Sarah Aspin.
However, despite the divorce – and welcoming a son called Jack with Sarah – his connection with Amy remained unfinished. Sarah had previously warned Amy to “keep her hands off” Blake, declaring: “He is mine and we are a family now.”
Tragically, just days later in 2011, as Blake began serving a 32-month prison sentence for burglary and firearm offences, Amy was discovered dead from alcohol poisoning in her bed. Fifteen months on, Blake was placed into an induced coma following a drug overdose but managed to recover.
Sarah, Blake’s other love interest, was found deceased at her council maisonette in Leeds two weeks ago. Sarah and Blake had two children together. In her book, “Letting Blake Go,” Blake’s concerned mother, Georgette Civil said she walked away from her eldest son knowing she would never see him again.
In 2021, Georgette suffered the devastating loss of her other son Feddie, 27, who died from a heroin overdose after absconding from a mental health unit and booking into a £40-a-night bed and breakfast in Leeds. Officers are currently investigating the death of 47 year old Sarah. Georgette has paid tribute whilst expressing her belief that Blake remains unaware of the death of his children’s mother.
(Image: ITV)
“It’s absolutely tragic – truly tragic. [But] I would have thought Blake doesn’t know,” she told the Daily Mail.
Blake is understood to have split from Sarah and is reportedly residing in a dilapidated bedsit in the Headingley area of Leeds Local residents describe the neighbourhood as plagued by drug use, though Blake – who previously worked on music videos for Lily Allen – ‘keeps his head down’ and ‘never talks about Amy’.
“It’s crazy,” the Leeds neighbour said. “He keeps his head down. He’s not an issue. But other people are up to all sorts.”
Nevertheless, The Sun reports he hasn’t been spotted there for three months and is thought to have relocated to live with a new partner. It’s a heartbreaking turn of events for someone who was once a privately educated pupil with a promising future ahead. Following Amy’s passing in 2011, Sarah shared her heart-wrenching experience. She visited him in prison shortly after the tragic 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 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.”
Get breaking news in Yorkshire straight to your phone
Get all the latest big and breaking Yorkshire news straight to your mobile via WhatsApp by clicking here.
If you don’t like our community, you can leave any time. We also treat members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. Read our privacy notice here.
Get all the latest and breaking news in Yorkshire by signing up to our newsletter here.