Judge orders Amy Winehouse’s father to pay nearly £1m to her friends after failed lawsuit
Judge orders Amy Winehouse’s father to pay nearly £1m to her friends after failed lawsuit
Annabel NugentThu, July 30, 2026 at 8:39 AM UTC
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Mitch Winehouse (David Parry/PA) (PA Archive)
Mitch Winehouse, father of Amy Winehouse, must pay just under £1m to two of his daughter’s friends after unsuccessfully suing them for auctioning her clothes and other possessions.
He also racked up at least £950,000 in his own legal costs during his failed High Court claim against the late singer’s former stylist Naomi Parry and her friend Catriona Gourlay.
The women, he claimed, had pocketed more than $1.4m (£1.05m) from selling dozens of his daughter’s personal effects at auction in the US in 2021 and 2023. He also alleged that they “deliberately concealed” the sale and “took advantage” of his forgetfulness.
Parry and Gourlay denied acting dishonestly, noting that the items sold had either been given or lent to them.
Mitch’s claim was thrown out in April by Ms Justice Clarke after finding out that Mitch had known “all along” about the intended auction and only pursued them for money after it was completed.
In a judgment on Wednesday (29 July), Clarke 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.
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“The fact that he knowingly and deliberately did this to two young women who had stood faithfully by Amy… makes his unreasonable conduct particularly serious.”
The judge said that, as of April, Parry’s costs were estimated to be £715,361, with Gourlay’s at £487,132.
She ordered that Mitch pay interim payments to each of the women – a sum of £569,330 to Parry and £394,521 to Gourlay – within the next two weeks. He must also pay the women’s legal costs.
In the April ruling, the judge said Mitch was “understandably sensitive about anyone who he perceives as exploiting Amy's memory... but also, in my judgement, he is equally sensitive about ensuring that the family continue to benefit financially”.
Among the hundreds of items that were auctioned between 2021 and 2023 were Winehouse’s clothes, ballet slippers, jewellery, makeup, and handbags. Also sold was a silk dress that she wore during her final performance in Belgrade, Serbia, which was auctioned for $243,200.
In her lifetime, the Grammy-winner struggled severely with substance abuse. She was found dead in her London house in 2011 at the age of 27. The cause of death was not immediately clear.
A second inquest into her death confirmed that she died of alcohol poisoning after binge drinking following a period of abstinence.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
