After winning five Grammy Awards Amy Winehouse might finally expect to find a little respect in America. But no, no, no.

Within minutes of her success at the music industry awards in Los Angeles, the troubled British singer was criticised by the very star who had handed out her Record of the Year prize. “I think she has a great talent but I don’t agree with the Grammys giving her those nods,” Natalie Cole said at the Sony BMG post-Grammy Awards party. “I think it sends the wrong message, that even in the midst of her stupor of drugs she can get nominated for all these awards.

“It’s a slap in the face to artists who work very hard that they give it to someone who really obviously doesn’t have a grasp of what she has.”

Cole, daughter of the jazz legend Nat King Cole, and an eight-time Grammy winner, can claim to know whereof she speaks, having battled heroin and cocaine addiction in the 1980s and spent time in “rehab” – the title of Winehouse’s winning song.

“I’ve been in this business over 25 years and I sacrificed five years of my own life on drugs and almost lost my life because of it,” Cole said. “So I take great offence to almost see someone getting glory out of being in the position that they’re in – she needs to get her life together and embrace her craft; she will lose it if she doesn’t get it together. Rehab is no joke. I was there for six months.”

Americans have followed lurid headlines about Winehouse’s struggle with drugs and erratic behaviour – which The New York Times called her “tabloid-ready lifestyle” – as if she were a transatlantic version of their own favourite music-industry casualty, Britney Spears.

Winehouse had to cancel a US tour after being hospitalised last year and got a US visa too late to attend the Grammys. She appeared by videolink from London’s Riverside Studios, singingYou Know I’m No GoodandRehab in front of a small audience, and critics found her performance compelling.

“The melding of eras was the theme of the 50th anniversary Grammy Awards on Sunday, but it will be remembered as the night Amy Winehouse was crowned as the new queen of pop-present,” declared The Hollywood Reporter.

“Off-key at times, her drawled syllables sometimes veering uncomfortably close to blackface, she nonetheless was the most exciting performer of the evening,” the Los Angeles Times said. “Her desperation to do well was palpably human, and her delivery was a gamble – a harder push, and a more electric one, than you usually see during a staged event like the Grammys.”

Winehouse had been nominated for six awards and won five – Record and Song of the Year, Best New Artist, Best Pop Vocal Album for Back to Black and Best Female Pop Vocal.

The jazz veteran Herbie Hancock scooped Album of the Year for River: The Joni Letters.

Voting had ended shortly before Winehouse again made the headlines when a leaked video apparently showed her smoking crack cocaine. Winehouse, who was allowed to leave her rehabilitation clinic for her Grammys performance, dedicated her success to her imprisoned husband, her family and London’s blaze-hit Camden Market. The singer, hugging her mother, said: “This is to my mum and dad – for my Blake incarcerated.”

Blake Fielder-Civil, her husband, is awaiting trial on a number of charges. Referring to the fire that destroyed her beloved Hawley Arms pub, she added: “And this is for London because Camden Town ain’t burning down.”

The winners

Album of the Year
River: The Joni Letters – Herbie Hancock

Record of the Year
Rehab – Amy Winehouse

Song of the Year
Rehab – Amy Winehouse

New Artist
Amy Winehouse

Pop Vocal Album
Back to Black – Amy Winehouse

Female Pop Vocal Performance
Rehab – Amy Winehouse

Rap/Sung Collaboration
Umbrella – Rihanna featuring Jay-Z Country

Album
These Days – Vince Gill

Rap Album
Graduation – Kanye West

Rock Album
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace – Foo Fighters

Male Pop Vocal Performance
What Goes Around . . . Comes Around – Justin Timberlake

Solo Rock Vocal Performance
Radio Nowhere – Bruce Springsteen

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