Features
Amy Performs For Abramovich
Despite her recent troubles, Russian billionaire and Chelsea soccer team owner Roman Abramovich reportedly paid Amy Winehouse £1 million to perform at a Moscow art gallery’s opening.
The new exhibition space, which is called The Garage and has been set up by Abramovich’s girlfriend Daria Zhukova, was formerly a bus depot and is "as big as two football pitches," according to newswires.
Abramovich and Zhukova, a former model, reportedly went on stage to thank the multi-Grammy winner for her June 10 show in front of 300 celebrities and figures from the art world.
The headline-grabbing singer’s Moscow appearance follows reports that Abramovich recently spent £60 million on two paintings by Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, record prices for the artists’ work.
Winehouse was reportedly hospitalized June 16 after fainting at her north London home, according to her publicist. Her manager’s assistant caught her as she fell and her father took her to the hospital as a precaution, the publicist said.
Winehouse has also been making headlines because she’s said to have lost out in her bid to record the theme for the new James Bond film. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard has confirmed that two east London residents have been charged with two counts of conspiracy to supply Winehouse with Class A drugs, namely cocaine and MDMA.
The charges are said to result from The Sun publishing a photo that appears to show the singer inhaling fumes from a crack pipe. That also led to Winehouse being arrested and interviewed last month, but police have since confirmed that she won’t be charged.
As of now, the singer has a handful of European festival dates on the books.