Troubled British singer Amy Winehouse is heading back to rehab, her spokeswoman said on Friday.
Winehouse, 27, ironically best known for her 2006 hit Rehab, checked herself in to a UK clinic on Wednesday prior to playing several summer dates in Europe.
“Amy has embarked on a treatment program at the Priory Clinic,” her publicist Tracey Miller said in a statement. “She wants to be ready for performances in Europe this summer and decided to seek an assessment. She will remain at the Priory on doctor’s advice.”
Photo: Reuters
The Grammy-award winning Winehouse has had an ongoing battle with substance abuse and health issues.
Celebrity Web site People.com reported on Friday that the move to enter rehab was prompted by her father Mitch Winehouse, who felt his daughter was drinking too much again.
Winehouse has yet to release a follow-up album to her 2006 breakout album, Back to Black. Her first new recording since then, It’s My Party, appeared on Quincy Jones compilation, Q: Soul Bossa Nostra, released in the fall.
According to Winehouse’s Web site, she is due to perform at music festivals in Serbia, Turkey, Greece, Spain and other European nations starting on June 18.
In other celebrity news, US actor Jeff Conaway, known for his roles in the television series Taxi and the movie Grease, died Friday after being in a coma for several days due to a suspected overdose, local media reported.
Conaway died in the Encino Medical Center northwest of Los Angeles as a result of complications from pneumonia, his sister Carla Shreve told the Los Angeles Times.
After several days in an induced coma, the actor’s family took the decision to disconnect him from an artificial respirator.
“Jeff Conaway was a wonderful and decent man, and we will miss him. My heartfelt thoughts are with his family and loved ones at this very difficult time,” Hollywood star John Travolta told E!News.
Conaway was hospitalized in June after being found unconscious in his house due to an overdose of prescription medications, said Shreve.
One of his last television appearances was in 2008 on the reality show Celebrity Rehab With Dr Drew, a program moderated by Drew Pinsky, a celebrity physician who specializes in addiction.
Born in New York, Conaway began his acting career on Broadway but his big break came with Grease, starring with Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.
Conaway later recalled in an interview that a back injury he suffered while making Grease led to his becoming addicted to painkillers, the start of innumerable drug problems that sabotaged his career.
On Celebrity Rehab, he admitted to struggling with addictions to cocaine and alcohol.
Also in Los Angeles, actress Lindsay Lohan began a sentence for jewelry theft under house arrest on Thursday, but is likely to serve only about 35 days of her four month term, officials said.
Lohan, 24, turned up at a Los Angeles jail at 5am on Thursday, was deemed eligible for home confinement, fitted with an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and released to her home within an hour, Los Angeles Sheriff’s department spokesman Steve Whitmore said.
“Lohan will be under the supervision of the sheriff’s department and her release date is expected to be around June 29,” Whitmore said. “She will serve about 35 days on home detention.”
The Mean Girls actress was sentenced two weeks ago to four months jail and 480 hours community service after pleading no contest to stealing a US$2,500 gold necklace from a store in January.
It was not immediately clear how much time she would be confined to house arrest. But Whitmore said earlier this month she would likely serve 16 to 17 days at home under programs for nonviolent offenders, good behavior and because of overcrowding in the city’s jails.
Lohan has already started her community service at a women’s jail.
Lohan has been in and out of jail and drug and alcohol rehab for the past four years following a 2007 arrest for drunken driving and cocaine possession.
Her troubles have derailed her once promising Hollywood career, but she was cast in April in an upcoming movie about New York crime boss John Gotti, alongside actors Al Pacino and John Travolta.
While Lohan isn’t bowing out yet, Oprah Winfrey is. She ended her famous talk show Wednesday by telling her viewers of 25 years that they weren’t saying goodbye.
“I won’t say goodbye, I’ll just say until we meet again,” Winfrey said.
She hugged and kissed her longtime partner Stedman Graham and shook hands with audience members before walking through the halls of Harpo Studios in Chicago, hugging and crying with her staff.
Winfrey shouted “We did it!” The last shot of the finale showed Winfrey walking away with her spaniel, Sadie.
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