After Cocaine Video Surfaces, Winehouse Goes to Rehab

The singer's record label confirmed she checked into a rehab facility.

ByABC News
February 26, 2009, 5:40 PM

LONDON, Jan. 24, 2008 — -- Amy Winehouse has finally said "yes" to rehab.

"Amy decided to enter the facility today after talks with her record label, management, family and doctors," Winehouse's record company, Universal Music Group, said today in a statement to reporters. "She has come to understand that she requires specialist treatment to continue her ongoing recovery from drug addiction."

Tuesday, a photo of the British singer apparently smoking a crack pipe was splashed across the front page of the U.K. tabloid The Sun.

The photo, taken from a 19-minute video whose source The Sun has not revealed, was accompanied by reports that the Grammy-nominated singer had allegedly engaged in a drug binge of cocaine, ecstasy, Valium and crack.

Winehouse, 24, is perhaps best known for her 2006 hit "Rehab," in which she wrote about her refusal to visit a rehab facility.

Hours after the video was released, however, the singer turned up at the privately run Capio Nightingale Hospital, accompanied by her father, Mitch, and a bodyguard, according to The Times of London. The mental health clinic in central London is famous for treating celebrities with addiction problems.

Supermodel Kate Moss was among those who retreated to the clinic when photos of her apparently snorting cocaine were published by The Daily Mirror, a British tabloid, in September 2005. Moss has since resurrected her modeling career to great fanfare, earning an estimated $28 million that same year.

So, will Winehouse survive her apparent drug addiction, not to mention the unflattering glare of the U.K. tabloid press?

Is Winehouse's Life on the Line?

In an interview with ABC News, Bryony Gordon, a columnist with The Daily Telegraph, said that the video footage meant that Winehouse wouldn't "be able to attend the Grammy Awards ceremony this year, because the U.S. authorities are unlikely to give her a visa."

But, according to others, the possible refusal of an American visa is the least of Winehouse's problems.

Andrew Wainwright, director of the U.S.-based Addiction Intervention Resources, told ABC News that drug addiction was "unlike any other disease."

"If the doctor says you have cancer, you believe him and begin the curing process immediately," Wainwright said.