Prescription Drugs Found In Amy Winehouse’s Body

Amy Winehouse’s father Mitch has spoken publicly for the first time about his daughter’s death.

Speaking with US talk show host Anderson Cooper, Mitch said toxicology tests found the prescription drug Librium in Amy’s body, and speculated that she may have taken too much of the powerful drug, which is also used to treat anxiety. "Everything Amy did, she did to excess," Mitch said. "She drank to excess and did detox to excess."

He also revealed that the Rehab star had been suffering from seizures brought on my alcohol withdrawal, during which she would lose consciousness, but said that she has been getting better: “The periods of abstinence were becoming longer, and the periods of drinking were becoming shorter.”

Amy’s father, who was a budding singer and in New York for gigs when she died, revealed how he first heard the terrible news. He said he received a call from the singer's bodyguard and, on hearing the distraught tone of his voice, asked: "Is she dead?"

The singer’s boyfriend Reg Traviss was also part of the interview and revealed that they couple had planned a trip to St Lucia for mid-September to celebrate her birthday.

He spoke of the difficulty in getting Amy to admit she needed professional help. "She was a really clever girl, she knew what she was doing,” Reg said. “I would sometimes choose my moments when there was something that was needed to be said." The full interview airs in the US on Monday.

The family’s new charity, The Amy Winehouse Foundation, will launch on her birthday, 14 September.