Amy Winehouse has a screw loose. Well, we're telling it wrong. The screw is still lodged where it belongs, in her pierced upper lip, but...''That little ball's popped off again! I knew it was the wrong f---ing size,'' she says, looking around the floor of the van, searching for the missing silver component. An assistant offers her a possible replacement in a Band Aid-like package. ''Here she comes to save the day!'' Winehouse sings, happily appropriating the ''Mighty Mouse'' theme in thanks.
We're on our way from the Star 98 mini-concert to the Los Angeles airport, where Winehouse will get on a plane to San Francisco, where she has a gig and — more importantly, for her — will be meeting up with her fiancé, who's coming over this same night from London. ''Six and a half hours away from kissing Blake!'' she gushes, counting the time like a smitten schoolgirl. ''You can kiss him first, Tom,'' she tells her road manager. ''What if he goes for you first? That'll be embarrassing! If you can't jump out of the way.''
But then a dispute arises. She really wants to be alone at the San Francisco airport for this romantic reunion. The road manager is insistent that someone go along, ''for safety reasons.'' It's not as if Winehouse can exactly go anywhere unrecognized nowadays, with her album having been in the Top 20 since it came out. ''None of you have got to go with me. It's my boyfriend,'' she emphasizes, then proudly corrects herself. ''My fiancé...I'll be all right by myself...You're just worried that we're gonna go and get a flight to Geneva, aren't you?'' Well, it wouldn't be the first time she missed a gig...
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When you canceled those London gigs at Shepherds Bush in March, right when you were breaking up with the other boyfriend, it made all the London papers, and got picked up on gossip websites over here. Were you surprised when you miss a gig that it's international news? There were all these pictures of you that day in the wine aisle of the market.
AMY WINEHOUSE: Oh, when I was walking my friend home, yeah yeah yeah. Yeah, you don't think it will get to that point, really.
And the worst part was that you let Sir Elton waiting! He was at the show you canceled, and his publicist issued a statement saying he was very sorry he didn't get to see the show.
Really? Sorry about that. There'll be a next time.
The latest story that came out of the Sun or one of those papers was that you were at a show and snapped at a promoter who offered you a drink, saying ''I don't drink,'' which everyone found very strange.
Oh, that was a joke. We set that up together, me and the promoter. It was funny at the time. Well, I didn't think it was that funny. I just thought I'd let [the promoter] get away with a little joke, because he's rather funny.
When I saw you at the Leno set yesterday, one of your stylists was trying to get you to go out for a night of drinking, and you were turning him down.
No, I mean, I don't have a drinking problem. I just didn't feel like drinking. [To her manager] I only had one drink last night, didn't I? I was drinking Shirley Temples, and then I had a Jack and Coke. But that was it, really.
NEXT PAGE: ''I made an album I'm really proud of. That's not the beginning or end of it, but for me, that's it.''
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