The New York Times-20080125-Amy Winehouse Goes To Rehab- -Brief-

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Amy Winehouse Goes To Rehab; [Brief]

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This time she said yes. Though Amy Winehouse, the troubled British singer, sang, They tried to make me go to rehab/I said no, no, no, on her breakthrough hit last year, she has assented to the idea and entered a rehabilitation clinic in the wake of a recently surfaced video that appears to depict her smoking crack. In a statement Thursday her British publicist said Ms. Winehouse, right, has come to understand that she requires specialist treatment to continue her ongoing recovery from drug addiction and prepare for her planned appearance at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 10 in Los Angeles, where she is up for six awards, and is the only nominee to be considered in all four marquee categories. But the statement also said she had canceled a planned appearance at the NRJ Music Awards in Cannes, France, on Saturday, the latest in a string of events she has scratched from her schedule amid her own legal troubles and those of her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, who is in jail for perverting the cause of justice after a pub brawl. Ms. Winehouse's appearance on the Grammy show is still seen as a long shot, not only because of uncertainty about her ability to perform but also because of doubts about her effort to secure a visa to travel to the United States given an arrest for marijuana possession in Norway in October. But the publicist, Chris Goodman, said, If she's well enough to do it, she certainly wants to do it. He added that in terms of her recovery, What better incentive than six nominations? The latest blow to what had seemed a rising career came in the form of a grainy video posted on the Web site of the British tabloid The Sun. In the clip Ms. Winehouse is seen lighting a glass pipe and smoking what The Sun reported is crack cocaine. A copy of the video on YouTube has been viewed more than 800,000 times, according to the Web site. In an interview after the video had surfaced, Neil Portnow, the president of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, which organizes the Grammy Awards, left open the possibility that Ms. Winehouse might yet manage to appear. Mr. Portnow said her representatives had notified the academy that they still are working on all of the possibilities of making this happen, and we want to give them an opportunity to work on that. He added, Things happen and things change, right up to and into showtime.

[Illustration]PHOTO (PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN KERSEY/ASSOCIATED PRESS)