5 Celebrities Who Had (or Are at Risk of) the Lung Disease COPD

Amy Winehouse

In June 2008 Amy Winehouse made world headlines when her father told an English tabloid that the drug-addled singer, then 24, had early-stage emphysema—a disease that usually strikes people in their 40s or older. “With smoking the crack cocaine and the cigarettes her lungs are all gunked up,” Mitch Winehouse told the Sunday Mirror. “She’s got 70% lung capacity.”

After the ensuing media frenzy, a Winehouse spokesman emphasized that Mr. Winehouse had misspoken, and that the singer had “early signs of what could lead to emphysema.” Experts, meanwhile, speculated that the singer could also be suffering from the pulmonary syndrome officially known as "crack lung".

Next: Dean Martin

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