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Case file s441 · Music and sport · 2011
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2011
Amy Winehouse: Amy Winehouse f4962007 crop
Amy Winehouse. Rama. CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
23 July 2011
Place
Camden, London · United Kingdom
Field
soul, jazz · Music on the timeline
Legal tradition
English law (intestacy) · Common law
Historical event
The "27 Club"; "Back to Black," 2006
Religion
Amy Winehouse: Jewish (recorded as Jewish English musicians, Jewish jazz musicians, Jewish women singers on Wikipedia)
Music and sportDied without a willNowEuropeUnited Kingdom

Amy Winehouse's father sued her friends over $1.2 million from her dresses and lost

Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning at 27 without a will†. Under English intestacy rules her parents inherited, and her father, Mitch Winehouse, became administrator of the estate†. In 2021 her stylist, Naomi Parry, sold 56 items at Julien's Auctions in Los Angeles for $878,000. That included $243,200 for the silk minidress Winehouse wore at her last performance, in Belgrade. Her friend Catriona Gourlay sold 85 items in 2023 for $344,000. Mitch Winehouse sued both women in the High Court in London, claiming they had no right to sell the items and had concealed the sales. Reports of the sum claimed range from £70,000 to more than £730,000. The women said the items were gifts from Winehouse or their own property. In April 2026 Deputy High Court Judge Sarah Clarke KC ruled against Mitch Winehouse. She found that neither woman had deliberately concealed any of the disputed items.

What the law took from it

Gifts made in life leave the estate, and without records an administrator cannot prove what still belonged to the dead person.

Sources
  1. wtop.comPress
  2. lbc.co.ukPress
  3. expressandstar.comPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Amy Winehouse's father sued her friends over $1.2 million from her dresses and lost,” story s441, https://www.celebrity.estate/amy-winehouse-2011, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Music and sportDied without a willNowEuropeCommon lawUnited Kingdom