Amy Winehouse didn't have a proper meal in 36 days before her death

Amy Winehouse was found dead in her bed around a decade ago, with alcohol poisoning reported as the cause of her death. Her brother Alex Winehouse later revealed that his sister had an eating disorder, which led to physical weakness and later became the primary cause of her death.

A close friend of the English songstress recently recalled inside details about how she was in the days before her death. Best-selling author Ian Halperin claims in his book that the friend, who has never before spoken, described the star as looking like "she was living on fumes in those final weeks," reports The Sun.

According to the book titled "27 Heaven," the "Back to Black" singer went 36 days without a proper meal in the weeks before she died. "She was rail thin and was existing on cigarettes and beverages; and when I say beverages it wasn't H2O. In her final days, Amy was despondent and this is a woman who was worth millions, it was terribly sad," Halperin writes in the book.

The singer's battle with bulimia was not entirely hidden from the public. She was often photographed looking unwell and emaciated. On the first night of a "comeback" tour of Europe in Belgrade just a week before her death, she was visibly drunk, could barely remember the lyrics she had written, and was eventually booed off stage by fans.

"It was just an awful performance. The friend said it was worse than Whitney Houston, worse than Michael Jackson for 'This Is It,' it was just scary the shape she was in," the book read. After the distressing incident, her management cancelled the 12-date tour so the singer could get better.

According to the friend, the star could have been saved from her untimely death at the age of 27. "She came from a good family and having that circle of management and handlers, there was no reason for her to die. It was just people were looking more at her record sale receipts than her health charts. People were starstruck for dollars and her fame, that's what they were focused on," the author writes.

Halperin's new book pays tribute to five stars who died at 27 - Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse. He said about the book, "This is my best book ever, it's 18 years of work. It's a beautiful piece about five rock stars whose life got cut short."