Profile: Amy Winehouse

Winehouse performed at this year's Glastonbury Festival

In recent months, the Grammy winner has become as well known for her high-profile personal and health problems as her music.

When she performed for the Grammys by satellite from London in February, she was accompanied by medical staff from a rehabilitation clinic where she had been treated for two weeks.

She was admitted after video footage emerged of her apparently smoking a crack pipe.

And last year, she was admitted to a London hospital suffering from "severe exhaustion" amid reports she was being treated in a rehabilitation clinic.

Rebellious streak

Brought up in Southgate, north London, Winehouse's rebellious streak became evident early when she was expelled from the capital's prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School for piercing her nose.

She went on to study at the Brit performing arts school in Croydon, south London.

The fresh-faced singer burst onto the British pop scene in 2003 with her jazzy voice and unique dress sense.

Her debut album Frank won Winehouse comparisons to jazz legends Nina Simone and Sarah Vaughn and was described by The Times newspaper as "earthy, warm, lived-in and astonishingly versatile".

Winehouse and Fielder-Civil married secretly last year

It was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize for album of the year in 2004 and Winehouse won the Ivor Novello songwriting award for best contemporary song with Stronger Than Me.

But it was the critical praise that followed the release of her follow-up album in October 2006 that propelled her to international stardom.

Rehab, the first track released from Back to Black, reached number seven in the UK singles chart.

The song, about her refusal to attend an alcohol rehabilitation centre, generated huge publicity, with Winehouse frequently being photographed drinking on stage and in pubs.

In February 2007, she scooped the title for best British female at the Brit Awards and, four months later, she picked up song of the year at the Mojo Awards.

Winehouse was again nominated for the Mercury Prize and went on to be named artist of the year at the MTV Europe Music Awards in November.

Her album Back To Black was the biggest-selling album of 2007 in the UK, shifting more than 1.85 million copies, and has sold another 1.5 million in the US.

In February 2008 she won five Grammy awards, and went on to perform at the Nelson Mandela birthday concert in London, and at the Glastonbury festival this June.

But as her popularity has soared, her health has began to suffer and her behaviour became more erratic.

At Glastonbury, she appeared to elbow a fan in the head as she finished her set in front of the Pyramid Stage.

James Gostelow, 25, from London, told the BBC the singer mistakenly caught him on the forehead after someone in the crowd behind him threw a hat at her. The incident was caught on digital camera but police said they had received no complaints of assault.

Self-harming

Winehouse also appeared to be drunk on Channel 4's The Charlotte Church Show in 2006, and took part in Never Mind The Buzzcocks in a similar state.

Her weight plummeted during an exhaustive schedule of promotional appearances and concerts in the UK and US, while she admitted punching a female fan at a gig in London and attacking her own boyfriend when he tried to calm her down.

The singer burst onto the music scene in 2003

And she shocked a journalist from US magazine Spin when she carved then-boyfriend Blake Fielder-Civil's name into her stomach with a shard of mirror during an interview.

It was a break-up with Fielder-Civil that inspired much of Back To Black.

But she surprised fans, and her own family, when she secretly married him during a trip to Florida in May 2007.

Since then, and despite lurid reports of public rows, the couple appeared inseparable.

But in November 2007, her world was thrown into further turmoil when Fielder-Civil was arrested.

He was jailed for 27 months on 21 July for attacking a pub landlord and perverting the course of justice.

Fielder-Civil, 26, admitted assaulting James King, 36, at the Macbeths pub in Hoxton, east London, in June 2006.

Crack pipe

Winehouse has also spent a night in the cells - she was arrested after on suspicion of assault in April.

She later accepted a caution after admitting slapping a man in Camden.

And in May, the singer was told by police she would not face charges over a video that purported to show her smoking a crack cocaine pipe.

She was interviewed under caution by police in east London after the footage was posted online in January.

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