Reporter Impressed By Time With 'Rock Star' Winehouse

The Rolling Stone magazine reporter who AMY WINEHOUSE invited into her home for an impromptu interview has confessed she was left impressed by the singer - even though she shocked her with explicit photos and seemed "out of it".

Claire Hoffman spent hours outside Winehouse's London home earlier this month (Jun08) before the pop star invited her in "for a beer".

Once inside, Hoffmann spent hours chatting to the troubled star, who was recently diagnosed with traces of deadly lung disease emphysema, about her marriage, her bid to gain weight and many personal issues.

By the time the journalist left the singer's squalid home, which she claims is littered with debris and clothing, she'd met some of Winehouse's closest friends and she had been treated to some personal photos of a sexual nature, according to U.S. news show Access Hollywood, which featured an interview with Hoffman on Friday (27Jun08).

The reporter said that the time she spent with Winehouse left her with a new impression of the troubled star: "I was actually really impressed by her. She's a real rock star."

But Hoffman admits she was shocked by Winehouse's skinny frame, which she repeatedly refers to in her article in the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine.

She adds, "She was way, way skinny. She looked like 70 pounds to me. She knows that she's skinny. She was saying the whole time that she wanted to eat more, she wanted to gain weight; she was eating the whole time I was there."