EXCLUSIVE: Amy Winehouse’s personal photographer reveals what she was really like before worldwide fame and what she would think of the modern music industry

She made an extraordinary impact on the music industry in the 2000s and the tragic end she met in 2011.

But Amy Winehouse, who died aged 27 from alcohol poisoning, was a “normal north London girl” when she met photographer Charles Moriarty.

Now the Irishman, 41, has revealed to Daily Mail Australia what the Rehab hitmaker really looked like in those peak years before fame engulfed her.

Introduced by a mutual friend, Charles met Amy in 2003 when she was ‘on the cusp of fame’ and months away from releasing her debut album Frank.

“She just looked like most young girls around 19,” Charles told Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday.

He continued, “You know, quite intelligent, witty, a lot of fun, and definitely knew what she wanted musically and how she wanted to be represented.

“Those were the conversations I had with her, how she could represent her authentic self through these photos.”

The photos were those he took in the months leading up to the release of her first studio album Frank.

After trying several other photographers to create her debut album cover, Charles was recommended to Amy by their mutual friend Tyler James.

Without realizing the incredible success that Amy would achieve, Charles managed to capture the ‘vibrant’ essence of her during those young and hopeful years.

Twenty years later, Charles is organizing an exhibition of those intimate and timeless photographs in Collingwood, Melbourne, next Wednesday Amy, before Frank.

“(I want) to leave a lasting memory of the girl, rather than the person (everyone) knew in the tabloids toward the end,” Charles said.

“It’s something that’s a very intimate experience and, in my opinion, a true representation of Amy as she was when she was 19.”

He said he hopes people will look at Amy’s photos and see her as “someone who liked to laugh, was lively, had a bit of a character and could be loud-mouthed.”

“At the end of the day, I think Amy was in many ways an ordinary girl from North London who also had this extraordinary talent,” he added.

‘I hope they can see that in these images. The girl who stood on the brink of fame and climbed a wave.”

Charles also revealed how great Amy was at connecting with people through her music and her words.

“I think one of the most powerful things she could do with her words was connect with people,” he said.

“I think that’s why people loved her music so much. Because of this she has spoken to so many people.

“Even without that, she, just herself, could make nice contact with you.”

When asked what he thought Amy would think of the current era of music and how it is influenced by apps like TikTok and Spotify, Charles laughed.

‘I think she would have hated it all. “I would have loved to see her (navigate),” he said.

“I’m sure she will continue to bend genres throughout music and create incredible albums.

‘She was such an incredible talent that she could have done absolutely anything with music.

“She would have gone on to do something completely different and probably amaze everyone at the same time.”

Sadly, Charles and Amy lost contact after two years of friendship when he returned to Ireland.

When he eventually returned to London, Charles had been forced to watch from the sidelines as Amy’s battle with substance abuse and mental illness reached its peak.

‘I tried to stay away from a lot of the things that were happening in the press. “I was definitely very proud to see her music explode all over the world,” he said.

‘It was just hard to see the dark end of the things that were happening in the press.

“There was a part of me that always wanted to knock on her house in Camden and see if I could do something or whatever, but I didn’t feel like this was really the place for me.”

Charles originally released the images from Amy’s first photo shoot with him in 2016, almost five years after her death, in a book called Before Frank.

He said it took “a long time” for him to reconnect with her parents Mitch and Janis and “gain their trust about what I did with the images.”

“Releasing the footage was really a direct response to the way Amy was perceived by the press and by people in general,” Charles said.

“There was a lot of bad press here for a long time and I wanted to combat that by sharing images of the person I knew with the world.”

Amy’s life in the public eye took a turn when she became involved in heavy alcohol and substance abuse with her husband Blake Fielder-Civil.

The couple met in a pub in 2005 and later married in Miami in 2007 before divorcing in 2009 after a tempestuous on-off relationship.

Six months after their wedding, Blake, 41, was jailed for an attack on a bar owner, leading to Amy’s famous Grammy Awards tribute: “My Blake, incarcerated.”

He went to prison in the summer of 2008 after being convicted of intentionally perverting the course of justice and intentionally causing grievous bodily harm over the attack.

During that time, Amy went to rehab, got a boyfriend and turned her back on hard drugs after Blake filed for divorce behind bars in 2009.

Despite her attempts to get back into a relationship with the former music video assistant, the divorce ultimately went through uncontested.

Amy quickly moved on with film director Reg Traviss who she was still dating when she died of accidental alcohol poisoning on July 23, 2011.