Amy Winehouse had been dead for barely three months when someone decided to turn her into the joke of a party.
In October 2011, Neil Patrick Harris and his husband David Burtka hosted a Halloween celebration at their home. Among the food, they served a platter arranged to resemble the British singer’s body, with a cigarette in her mouth and a sign that read “The Corpse of Amy Winehouse”. Below it, the menu: beef ribs, pulled pork, and chicken sausage covered in spicy BBQ sauce. Winehouse had died on July 23 of that year, at 27, from alcohol poisoning.
The photo circulated without much fuss at the time. Eleven years later, in May 2022, it resurfaced online and this time it did spark outrage: thousands of users called the gesture cruel and in poor taste. Harris had to explain himself to Entertainment Weekly, called the episode “regrettable” and apologized for the harm caused. By then, the joke had already spent a decade awaiting its own judgment.
