Amy Winehouse Grammys: Rewarded for Bad Behavior?
AJ HAMMER, CNN ANCHOR, SHOWBIZ TONIGHT: On SHOWBIZ TONIGHT, a shocking Amy Winehouse Grammy controversy. You know Amy won a bunch of awards but tonight, there`s outrage that that sends a bad message. On top of it all, she popped out of a substance abuse rehab program to sing her hit song "Rehab" live on the show. Is there too much Winehouse whining or was this a stupid, stupid idea? Tonight, a fired up great debate. And another showbiz great debate is "American Idol" good or bad for music? I mean for every Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, there are a whole bunch of flops. Tonight, the SHOWBIZ TONIGHT great debate, is "American Idol" good for music? Welcome back to SHOWBIZ TONIGHT. It is 30 minutes past the hour. I`m AJ Hammer broadcasting tonight and every night from New York City.</s>BROOKE ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR, SHOWBIZ TONIGHT: And I`m Brooke Anderson coming to you tonight from Hollywood. This is TV`s most provocative entertainment news show. Tonight, SHOWBIZ TONIGHT can tell you that there is a brand new controversy over Amy Winehouse and her big wins at the Grammy awards. Singer Natalie Cole is slamming Winehouse`s multiple Grammy wins and says she shouldn`t be rewarded for her bad behavior. Winehouse won five awards on Sunday night. She even popped out of rehab to perform so tonight it`s a SHOWBIZ TONIGHT great debate. Is Amy Winehouse just another star being rewarded for bad behavior? With us again tonight in Los Angeles Jane Velez-Mitchell, investigative journalist and author of this book, "Secrets Can Be Murder." And Tanika Ray, correspondent for "Extra." Jane, Tanika, first you got to take a look at what Natalie Cole said. It really is unbelievable. She truly feels strongly about this. She said, quote to people.com, we have to stop rewarding bad behavior. I`m sorry. I think the girl is talented, gifted, but it`s not right for her to be able to have her cake and eat it too. She needs to get herself together. You know, Natalie definitely has a unique perspective on this because she herself has battled drug addiction.</s>JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Totally.</s>ANDERSON: She`s gone to rehab, Jane, is Natalie right, Amy Winehouse being rewarded for bad behavior here?</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: She is being rewarded for bad behavior and the dangerous part is that it could kill her. You don`t jump off an operating table in the middle of open heart surgery to sing at the Grammys and you don`t leaving another life-saving operation like rehab to sing at the Grammys. I`m not saying she shouldn`t have won the prizes, but she shouldn`t have performed especially a song like "Rehab" where she`s talking about I don`t want to go to rehab. This sends a horrible message and the adulation that she received is the last thing that she should be getting because she needs to learn humility.</s>TANIKA RAY, CORRESPONDENT, "EXTRA": Jane, you know how TV works, girl.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: What?</s>RAY: You know how TV works. You need ratings. I wouldn`t have watched the Grammys if Amy Winehouse wasn`t on. It was the best album of the year and she is not being rewarded for her behavior.</s>RAY: Her parents should be parents and save her life. It`s not the Grammys that are going to save her life.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Parents don`t save the life of addicts. Rehab save the lives of addicts and you know, even her people said when she was checking in that she was checking in to prepare for the Grammys so now that she`s swept the Grammys and gotten all this adulation, what incentive does she have to stay sober given that she was photographed just a couple of weeks ago apparently smoking crack?</s>RAY: You are really hyped up, Jane. Relax. It is not that deep.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: It is.</s>RAY: When it comes down to it --</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: It is. Crack is serious.</s>RAY: Crack is very serious, but let`s think about the past winners for the Grammys. Artists are different brains. They`re different types of people. We would haven`t the brilliance of music if it weren`t for a couple of jacked up artists along the way. Let`s think about Whitney Houston. She loves crack no matter how whack it is. Ray Charles had a heroin addiction.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: We have Jimi Hendrix. We`ve lost Janis Joplin. We`ve lost Jim Belushi and we should learn from those experiences and not reward this kind of behavior.</s>RAY: It has nothing to do with --</s>ANDERSON: There are a lot of people -- sorry, guys. I do want to jump in. There are a lot of people who agree with you, Tanika, that hey, Amy Winehouse, not the first person especially not the first music artist to have substance abuse issues, drug addiction problems. The ladies of "The View" were really all over this topic today including Joy Behar (ph). Listen to this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The drug thing? I really don`t think it has anything to do with the person`s music. I mean, if we judge people by their personal lives, you would never hear any music on the air. I went through the `60s. Every single one of them was on drugs. You would never listen to the Moody Blues, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones. You`d never listen to Frank Sinatra. He liked to booze it up. Come on.</s>ANDERSON: OK. It almost sounds like Joy is saying her private life is her private life as long as she comes out with good music. It`s OK for the public, Tanika. Does Joy have a point?</s>RAY: Yeah Joy does have a point. This is the thing. It is not about we don`t care what she`s doing in her private life. It`s about the Grammys have blinders on the music only and that`s all they`re responsible for.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tanika, I`m not saying she shouldn`t have won. I`m saying she shouldn`t have performed.</s>RAY: .amazing her music was and that`s all they rewarded her for. So to concentrate on all the other things is a little ridiculous right now, Jane.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to say private life is a private life but she has been making her private life public. She was photographed walking around in a bra.</s>RAY: She didn`t make it. She didn`t hire that camera crew. VELEZ-MITCHELL She was walking around the streets of London in a bra. She was walking around the streets bloody. She was smoking apparently crack in front of a photographer.</s>ANDERSON: Hopefully she is continuing her substance abuse treatment. Jane, there are people who say that Amy Winehouse going through what she has been through and then getting up on stage and winning five out of six Grammys for which she was nominated does influence young people and make her a role model in a negative sense. Do you agree with that?</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to clarify. I love her music. I think she should have won the awards. I don`t think she should have performed and gotten the adulation because it is the last thing she needs and it`s the last thing people battling with addiction out there need. Let me explain why. Because addiction is about being terminally unique, breaking all the rules. She should have been singing "My Way" because that`s the way she`s doing it. She is winning today but she won`t win at the end.</s>RAY: Here`s the thing Jane.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: . catch up with her. She needs to be developing humility.</s>RAY: Here`s the thing.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: . not the arrogance of breaking all the rules.</s>RAY: If you were listening to yesterday`s show. AJ and Jolie (ph), everybody agrees that she looked the most wide-eyed and sober that she had looked in a long time. I think this is going to inspire Amy to take her life in a better direction and seeing that she is being rewarded for the music and really understand what was behind Amy`s issues over the last couple years. She is really ill-equipped to deal with stardom and she`s made that very apparent.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: You know what?</s>RAY: She doesn`t</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: That`s what artists do.</s>RAY: You are absolutely right.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Addiction is cunning, powerful and baffling and it sits on your shoulders, especially something like crack, which is like the most fervent lover in the world.</s>RAY: You are right.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Beckoning to you at all times, come back to me.</s>RAY: Jane?</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: She needs to be protected from that.</s>ANDERSON: In that video, she was allegedly smoking crack. We do not know that for sure. I want to take -- I want to take a look at the performance "Rehab" for which she won a Grammy gold for that song. Take a look at it. Jane, I know what you are saying. You are happy that she won the award for her music, but do you agree with people who are saying it was in incredibly poor taste to perform this song and to seemingly be thumbing her nose at everybody?</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Exactly. And she is making a mockery of the rehab process. That`s why rehab is becoming a joke. She could have turned it all around. At the end of singing the song, she could have said, you know what? I`m singing this song about I don`t want to go to rehab but I am in rehab because --</s>RAY: Why?</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m an addict. I hit bottom. I apologize to all my fans and --</s>RAY: Come on.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: My message out there is don`t do drugs. Then she could have been a hero, gotten --</s>RAY: No, come on. It is not for her to be sober to be a hero for you or any of the kids out there. That`s a private pain that she`s going through. If she wants to publicly announce that she`s so sorry, I think that`s a little insincere.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Nothing about her life is private.</s>RAY: Well, that`s because the paparazzi -- think about it this way, Jane.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Go ahead.</s>RAY: If the stars of the past had paparazzi at all times, it would have been private too, but we got to acknowledge Jimi Hendrix and all those greats from the `60s for just their music. Yeah, there`s that drug thing but we didn`t concentrate on it.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tanika, you`re making my point. I don`t want her to become a Jimi Hendrix. I don`t want her to die. I want her to live and the way she`s going to live is by taking rehab seriously.</s>RAY: Jane, what does that have to do with the Grammys?</s>ANDERSON: I`m going to jump in there. We may all disagree on Amy Winehouse`s actions, her behavior, but I think we can all agree --</s>RAY: Go get sober, girl.</s>ANDERSON: We hope for her --</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to be wrong. I want to be wrong. I hope she stays sober forever.</s>ANDERSON: Thank you both. We have been asking you to vote on our SHOWBIZ TONIGHT question of the day. It is this: Amy Winehouse, should she have been banned from the Grammys? Keep voting, cnn.com/showbiz tonight. E-mail us showbiztonight@cnn.com. Well, I really do hope Amy Winehouse gets her act together. She is super talented and so is Michael Jackson. I mean, we all know how big he was right before he started acting, well, bizarrely. Tonight, a rare Michael Jackson interview on the 25th anniversary of "Thriller." I feel old. You got to hear a stunning message for this fans. That`s next.</s>HAMMER: Brooke, you are not old. And I bet "American Idol" would love to have Michael Jackson on their show. Of course, he`s done a lot of good for the music business, obviously. But tonight, there`s a raging question, is "Idol" good for music? We`re going to put that question -- we did put it to the stars. Wait until you hear their very passionate answers. That great debate coming up next.</s>ANDERSON: AJ, I think talk show host Montel Williams is very passionate and very inspiring about his emotional and physical battle with multiple sclerosis. I get him to really open up about his struggle. Got to stick around for that, straight ahead.