Feb 11, 8:21 PM EST

Whitney Houston, superstar of records, films, dies

By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY


LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Whitney Houston, who ruled as pop music's queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, has died. She was 48.

Houston's publicist, Kristen Foster, said Saturday that the singer had died, but the cause and the location of her death were unknown.

News of Houston's death came on the eve of music's biggest night - the Grammy Awards. It's a showcase where she once reigned, and her death was sure to case a heavy pall on Sunday's ceremony. Houston's longtime mentor Clive Davis was to hold his annual concert and dinner Saturday; it was unclear if it was going to go forward.

At her peak, Houston the golden girl of the music industry. From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world's best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen.

Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like "The Bodyguard" and "Waiting to Exhale."

She had the he perfect voice, and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who had sex appeal but was never overtly sexual, who maintained perfect poise.

She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey, who when she first came out sounded so much like Houston that many thought it was Houston.

But by the end of her career, Houston became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming; her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances. She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her once pristine voice became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.

"The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy," Houston told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 interview with then-husband Brown by her side.

It was a tragic fall for a superstar who was one of the top-selling artists in pop music history, with more than 55 million records sold in the United States alone.

She seemed to be born into greatness. She was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, the cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick and the goddaughter of Aretha Franklin.

Houston first started singing in the church as a child. In her teens, she sang backup for Chaka Khan, Jermaine Jackson and others, in addition to modeling. It was around that time when music mogul Clive Davis first heard Houston perform.

"The time that I first saw her singing in her mother's act in a club ... it was such a stunning impact," Davis told "Good Morning America."

"To hear this young girl breathe such fire into this song. I mean, it really sent the proverbial tingles up my spine," he added.

Before long, the rest of the country would feel it, too. Houston made her album debut in 1985 with "Whitney Houston," which sold millions and spawned hit after hit. "Saving All My Love for You" brought her her first Grammy, for best female pop vocal. "How Will I Know," "You Give Good Love" and "The Greatest Love of All" also became hit singles.

Another multiplatinum album, "Whitney," came out in 1987 and included hits like "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."

The New York Times wrote that Houston "possesses one of her generation's most powerful gospel-trained voices, but she eschews many of the churchier mannerisms of her forerunners. She uses ornamental gospel phrasing only sparingly, and instead of projecting an earthy, tearful vulnerability, communicates cool self-assurance and strength, building pop ballads to majestic, sustained peaks of intensity."

Her decision not to follow the more soulful inflections of singers like Franklin drew criticism by some who saw her as playing down her black roots to go pop and reach white audiences. The criticism would become a constant refrain through much of her career. She was even booed during the "Soul Train Awards" in 1989.

"Sometimes it gets down to that, you know?" she told Katie Couric in 1996. "You're not black enough for them. I don't know. You're not R&B enough. You're very pop. The white audience has taken you away from them."

Some saw her 1992 marriage to former New Edition member and soul crooner Bobby Brown as an attempt to refute those critics. It seemed to be an odd union; she was seen as pop's pure princess while he had a bad-boy image, and already had children of his own. (The couple had a daughter, Bobbi Kristina, in 1993.) Over the years, he would be arrested several times, on charges ranging from DUI to failure to pay child support.

But Houston said their true personalities were not as far apart as people may have believed.

"When you love, you love. I mean, do you stop loving somebody because you have different images? You know, Bobby and I basically come from the same place," she told Rolling Stone in 1993. "You see somebody, and you deal with their image, that's their image. It's part of them, it's not the whole picture. I am not always in a sequined gown. I am nobody's angel. I can get down and dirty. I can get raunchy."

It would take several years, however, for the public to see that side of Houston. Her moving 1991 rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl, amid the first Gulf War, set a new standard and once again reaffirmed her as America's sweetheart.

In 1992, she became a star in the acting world with "The Bodyguard." Despite mixed reviews, the story of a singer (Houston) guarded by a former Secret Service agent (Kevin Costner) was an international success.

It also gave her perhaps her most memorable hit: a searing, stunning rendition of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," which sat atop the charts for weeks. It was Grammy's record of the year and best female pop vocal, and the "Bodyguard" soundtrack was named album of the year.

She returned to the big screen in 1995-96 with "Waiting to Exhale" and "The Preacher's Wife." Both spawned soundtrack albums, and another hit studio album, "My Love Is Your Love," in 1998, brought her a Grammy for best female R&B vocal for the cut "It's Not Right But It's Okay."

But during these career and personal highs, Houston was using drugs. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2010, she said by the time "The Preacher's Wife" was released, "(doing drugs) was an everyday thing. ... I would do my work, but after I did my work, for a whole year or two, it was every day. ... I wasn't happy by that point in time. I was losing myself."

In the interview, Houston blamed her rocky marriage to Brown, which included a charge of domestic abuse against Brown in 1993. They divorced in 2007.

Houston would go to rehab twice before she would declare herself drug-free to Winfrey in 2010. But in the interim, there were missed concert dates, a stop at an airport due to drugs, and public meltdowns.

She was so startlingly thin during a 2001 Michael Jackson tribute concert that rumors spread she had died the next day. Her crude behavior and jittery appearance on Brown's reality show, "Being Bobby Brown," was an example of her sad decline. Her Sawyer interview, where she declared "crack is whack," was often parodied. She dropped out of the spotlight for a few years.

Houston staged what seemed to be a successful comeback with the 2009 album "I Look To You." The album debuted on the top of the charts, and would eventually go platinum.

Things soon fell apart. A concert to promote the album on "Good Morning America" went awry as Houston's voice sounded ragged and off-key. She blamed an interview with Winfrey for straining her voice.

A world tour launched overseas, however, only confirmed suspicions that Houston had lost her treasured gift, as she failed to hit notes and left many fans unimpressed; some walked out. Canceled concert dates raised speculation that she may have been abusing drugs, but she denied those claims and said she was in great shape, blaming illness for cancellations.

I still think her rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at Super Bowl XXV was the best ever in that event's history.

And I will always love you........
Such a tragedy, such a waste of a beautiful voice.....Damn

A Great, Great singer. RIP

Very sad. She was a great singer in her prime. Once she got caught up in Bobby Brown's drug world, she could no longer reach the high notes. Thus, you did not hear much music being released from her. I watched the Dateline Special with Lester Holt on Sunday evening from 7-8. What a brilliant lady she was in the beginning, such a young inocent girl, raised in a very good family. It's very sad what the drug world makes a person become. The most disturbing thing for me to see was Bobby Brown, all crying and so very upset. Wonder if he was like that when he used to knock her around and when they split the lines evenly. Again, this was another death, that I was not really surprised about, knowing of her spiraling downward in the past several years

I don't think it's totally fair to blame Bobby Brown for this. Whitney had something in her personality or character traits or something that made her pre-disposed to to hook up with somebody like him and to get involved with drugs. Had it not been Bobby it could've been anybody else that became her "partner in crime".

I flipped through channels last night and caught the tail end of Geraldo Rivera interviewing Russell Simmons, and Geraldo was trying to make the same point to blame Bobby Brown. I liked what Russell had to say about it. I looked on YouTube but it doesn't seem like anybody had posted it yet, but it was a good point to hear.

I do know what you're saying. And...I also know for many it's easier to blame the one still living. Whitney obviously was a co-dependant, attracted to toxic people and a toxic life. I truly believe that either you live what you learn and grow up with all of your life. Or it is something definitely in the genes. Now, her daughter has been hospitalized twice since her mother's death, from taking pills and drinking as well. It's a shame, it really is.

Link regarding Whitney's daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown:

http://celebritybabyscoop.com/2012/02/13/bobbi-kristina-brown-hospitalized-twice

Whitney's singing talent was God given and the higher side of life. Miss use of drugs and bad attractions are from the lower side of life.

She is in the better side now. Bobby Brown lost.

According to Ayuveda and Josephus there's no such thing as God!

According to Josephus, his existence is in question and not proven.

How is it that simple concepts can't get through that cement head of yours, Harleyfraud?

I feel shunned that you didn't include my name.

Ahahahaha...I forgot you don't believe in God, but you do believe in Karl Marx!

Sure, I believe Karl Marx existed as the historical record is there, although I don't prescribe to his political philosophies. Haven't seen any record on God yet though...

What has any of that have to do with anyone's opinion about belief in God?

OCD Harley.



Don't be scared homie.

Poor Harley. He can't separate one's skepticism in diety from their political beliefs.

Buddhism's a major form of sprituality in our world, their practitioners are also agnostic for the most part.

if she never married him would she still be alive?

Are you a your B.buddy Buddhist's?

The way you seek attention is not the way God seeks it. God is love. What you seem to be is more towards Bobby Brown - just always trashing.

IMO those that question for the purpose of seeking God/truth, are at a better place than the trash you post.

I'm a different kind of God.

You're saying that Bobby Brown forced Houston to take drugs and drink alcohol, my God what else did he force her to do? I hope he never had...you know sexwith her!

You ought to know what kind of mind he had.

How can you say such a thing you don't know me. And it my be wrong of me to assume, you don't know bobby Brown either.

Kind of sad that a washed up crack-whore gets more publicity than our Soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice

What a way for mainstream media to avoid all the more pressing topics and important news stories: 24/7 Whitney coverage

Sony raised prices on Whitney Houston’s digital music 30 minutes after her death

Somebody at SONY was really "on the ball", making this decision immediately upon hearing of her death.

Did you get scammed by SONY?

Not at all. I download my music free, like a true Capitalist getting the most for myself at as little cost to myself.

Where do you buy your gas?

I buy my gas and cigarettes from Nice-N-Easy because I don't want to see kyle's wrath.

Funny you say that - I posted something to that effect on an ABC news coverage about this story.

You smoke cigarettes!?

I don't think its funny, i think its sad. I think you're funny in a demented old booze-hag kind of way.

I sure do, in the car next to my kids and with the windows rolled up. Call the cops.

Why would I care, that's your business not mine!

Let me see if I have it straight. We may not believe in god because at some time in history people wrote about God.

But we should believe in Karl Marx because at some time in history some one wrote about Karl Marx.

Is that about right?

God Bless Whitney Houston.

It is always a tragedy when some one is lost, no matter who that person is.

Karl Marx's mother should have thrown him down a well at birth.

I believe in God and his only begotten Son Jesus.

Did you hear about the Agnostic insomniac with dyslexia?

He stayed up all night contemplating the existence of Dog.

ROFL

I think I'll get tuned up and drive around Seneca county in my 1978 sky blue Ford pick-up and think about what you said.

I agree with you about Karl Marx's mother. Still waiting for proof on God and his boy.

Read the Bible, it full of proof!

Thought this thread was dedicated to Whitney Houston? Well it was nice while it lasted....6/7 posts I believe before it veered

Community ADHD.

Whitney Houston was a good Christian, but she was sidetracked from God in a crack pipe.

How's that for getting back on track my little Communist heckler.

It is? Ahahahaha.... yeah, right. So is Alice through the Looking Glass. I don't believe that story either...

The book 1984 by George Orwell holds more truth I can physically prove than the Holy Bible. Yet, 1984 is clearly a work of fiction. Go figure.....

I guess this is a perfect example of why my father always said "you never discuss politics or religion because everybody has their own views and it always ends up in a debate." Argument is more like it, it is definitely two topics which many can never discuss lightly. I give my viewpoints on my belief, but I never force the issue nor try to make a non-believer a believer. It's called Individuality and just because I may be a Christian doesn't make me like you any less because you don't believe.

Well said. Tolerance is a wonderful thing.




I'm sure Whitney Houston would have agreed.

But yet you believe whats in the history books, I find that kind of odd.

Didn't you said, you are the spawn of Satan?

Historical painting of your beloved fellow CHINOS.

Is that where you developed a taste for kissing the Cloven Hoof?


Don't be scared homie.

I don't even play into the little childish games of CJ, whom I wish would just get banned once and for all for his stupid, ignorant posts. Oh did I mention the lack of proper grammar within his posts. We won't even go there! I think it would be quite funny if everybody just stop responding to his hogwash posts.

It's called the ignore option. Click on my username and go to my profile page its in there.

PS: Say what you want, you love the attention. That's why you'll keep coming back for more.

PSS: Why are you sounding like an elitist when you're screeching about my grammar?

Except of course that history books are full of documentation and cite witnesses, legal documents, etc. As for the bible, not one of the gospels were written by an eye witness. They were written several decades AFTER Jesus' death and are secondary sources.

You mean like the book Chris(Tingles)Matthews wrote about JFK!?

Haven't read it. Are you trying to say that Matthews shouldn't have written it because he was a child when JFK was assassinated?

Did Matthews have any citations in his work? Were any of them primary sources? I'll bet he used alot of them. And while we're at it, what citations did the writers of the gospels have? What was their primary documentation?

Deus Solis transferentes in Filium Dei.

What????

Turning the Sun God into the Son of God.

Go slow and easy with Harley. It's a teaching moment.

What a load of crap this thread turned into.

Who knows? He may have not even been the person who got her started on illegal drugs. After all, she did have free will, and presumably made her own choices. It's also looking like her alchohol abuse may have been the final culprit, in combination with those oh-so-safe legal drugs.

Whitney Houston's candle light vigil.

I already know your response but I want to bring out the absolute ignorance in you
What do you call people who disrespect dead soldiers?
To respect the soldier may mean condoning the killing of a child in war.
A soldier deserves no more respect than a policeman and less than a fireman.
A soldier takes the risk and should know that those who live by the sword die by the sword.
A soldier should always be aware that his/her life is forfeit to the whims of politicians.

You must be a member of the Westboro Baptist Church!

No but what would you say if I told you that they are absolutely correct?

FYI: To the forum posters, I do not take any negative stance condoning hatred toward anyone. Chicago Jesus cannot comprehend his ignorance and why I made such a statement. His bigotry, hatred and racist attitudes are truly amazing. Hats off to ya kiddo.

You have not figured out it is just a game? He says what he says, does what he does, because it causes everybody to stop discussing the topic of the thread and turn their attention on to him.

I doubt he even agrees with the things he says but he says them to cause a stir. Seriously, do you expect anything better from a guy like this:

I was also thinking that Whitney's spiral into drugs and alcohol abuse might have occurred regardless of who she married. A big part of me thinks that she wasn't prepared for the notariety and fame her career brought her. It is unfortunate she passed away. I think she was an amazing entertainer in her prime, but she single handedly destroyed her career and her voice with her vices.

Being cousins with Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick and having Aretha Franklin as a god-mother, I would think she should've been prepared for the lifestyle of a famous singer.

Seriously though, Whitney was much more famous and her career took off faster then any of her relatives. She was also pretty young at the onset of her fame.

The world did lose an amazing talent with her death. It is unfortunate.

That's a photo of Lus!

Sorry. Is this one is you?

that's not me.

this is me.

You said what I was thinking, and maybe better than I did. I'll take another crack at it:

Just because a person is so beautiful and so talented, and just because her life looks so easy and perfect from the outside, doesn't mean that she hasn't always, meaning from childhood, had her quirks, demons, and warped or mistaken and foolish values.

No matter what one's color, drugs in America are always only a phone call away, and always will be, no matter how onerous, intrusive, and yes, sometimes unconstitutional the law is made to be. We all make our choice whether to take drugs, and/or which ones to take, such as alcohol, prescription drugs, pot, crack, etc., etc..


As Houston said of Brown, "We come from the same place." People are prone to look at a person, and a life, which started so seemingly perfectly, when looked at from the outside,and assume that someone else had to have pushed her into it. I figure that perhaps she didn't need much of a push, and perhaps none at all. FI, the deletorious effects of drugs don't manifest overnight; some of them take years to show up. It's entirely possible that she was doing lines when she was still in the church choir.

It's a very sad thing, in any case, but the fact that she was talented, pretty, and rich and famous doesn't really make it any sadder than the early and probably unnecessary death of any other person.

John Donne probably said it as well as anyone:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.

Basically I agree with you. But associations sometimes don't help. I believe she could not shake her "devils".

Very true, and let's face it, B Brown is certainly not the type that one would ever choose to be his daughter's companion (I wouldn't asssociate with him myself, for that matter), but in the end, he didn't tie her up and force those drugs into her body, was my main point, with which I think you agree.

I guess I'm just saying that in the face of a shocking and seemingly incomprehensible even such as this, people like to reduce and simplify it to comprehensible cause, which is often not the only cause, and sometimes not even a cause. When we are left to guess, sometimes we guess wrong, but guess we will, for that is human nature.

On that note I think I'll get tuned into Mother nature.

LOL...thanks for the suggestion.

And your point?

Exactly. Besides, Lt. Murphy wasn't forgotten. What do you think the CMH was about?

Let’s keep ALL people in proper perspective....humans who inspire other yet are still, flawed at times.

What are these guys doing?

Bobbi Kristina Brown Found Getting High After Whitney’s Funeral?
by Allison Samuels Feb 19, 2012 1:12 PM EST
Whitney Houston’s daughter disappeared for several hours after her mother’s funeral—and was found using drugs, according to two sources close to the family. Allison Samuels on the plan to get her to rehab.

Just hours after watching an emotionally charged tribute to her doting mother, Whitney Houston, Bobbi Kristina Houston Brown decided she needed some time alone. So while friends and family convened at a local eatery in Newark, N.J., to remember the 48-year-old musical legend, Bobbi Kristina simply disappeared.
BOBBI KRISTINA BROWN

Paul Zimmerman / Getty Images

As Houston’s body was set to be transported to the Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, N.J., for burial Sunday morning, her family was in full panic mode trying to find the 18-year-old, who suffered at least two emotional breakdowns last week after the sudden death of her mother Feb. 11, according to two sources who spoke to The Daily Beast and are in close communication with Bobbi Kristina’s family.

“Everyone was freaking out and calling Bobbi Kristina’s cell,” said one source, a longtime family friend. “It was so much commotion and activity after the funeral that Bobbi Kristina just slipped away. Ms. Cissy [Houston, Whitney’s mother] was beside herself.”

"There was some confusion about Bobbi Kristina’s whereabouts last night for a short time, but she's OK,” a Houston family spokesperson told The Daily Beast. “She needed some time alone.” The spokesperson says Bobbi Kristina isn’t on drugs and is just emotionally fragile at this time. “She is going through a very hard time as you can expect.”

The only child of Houston and singer Bobby Brown became the center of attention last week after her mother’s body was found underwater in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles. The product of two admitted drug users, family members worry Bobbi Kristina is already too familiar with the vices and demons that most likely led to her mother’s untimely death.

“Cissy and others won’t admit out loud that Bobbi Kristina has a drug problem,” said the family friend. “But they know it and have been trying to keep her straight even before Whitney passed. But losing your mother and the life you’re accustomed to all in one day is enough to send anybody off the deep end.”

Even before the funeral was held Saturday, the family had serious discussions about Bobbi Kristina entering into rehab as soon as her mother was laid to rest, according to multiple sources familiar with the conversations. They say she spent the night after her mother’s death using drugs to dull the pain.

Bobbi Kristina entered rehab for a drug problem early last year, says one of the family friends who spoke to The Daily Beast, a longtime associate of the family. (The Houston family spokesperson would not comment on this matter.)

Bobbi Kristina arrived in New Jersey shortly before her mother’s body was flown in last week and was said to be coping better in the days before funeral. “She had the people she loved and love her the most around,” one of the sources told The Daily Beast. “Ms. Cissy was holding on tight and watching her every move.”

‘Bobbi Kristina is all Ms. Cissy has left of Whitney. She’s so tired, but she’s ready to fight again to save her grandbaby.’

Still, things fell apart again for the teenager at the actual funeral service when her father Bobby Brown attempted to enter with nine other people. Security allowed them in but seated the group separately and wouldn’t allow him to see Bobbi Kristina. Brown caused a scene complaining.

“That was just too much for Bobbi Kristina to handle,” says another source at the funeral who witnessed the conversation and saw Bobbi Kristina was visibly upset. “All that drama, and Cissy finally asked him to come in and stay, but Bobby wouldn’t. Cissy only did that to help Bobbi Kristina, because Cissy cannot stand Bobby. She just didn’t want a big drama with him on that day of all days.”

The family friend added that Houston would have indeed wanted Brown and his family to attend the funeral and would want Bobbi Kristina to grow closer to her father. Houston financially supported most of Brown’s family for the duration of their marriage. After the couple divorced in 2007, Brown moved on, became engaged, and had another child.

“That hurt Bobbi Kristina, and you know it hurt Whitney,” said the source. “Bobbi Kristina saw her father keep it moving and leave them behind. Whitney had accepted it to some extent, but Bobbi K. is still so angry and was angry before her mom died.”

Several hours after the funeral, Bobbi Kristina was found at a hotel “getting high,” according to one source who was with the family when they received the news. A second source was told of the event from a member of the family. (The Houston spokesperson denied the incident occurred.) Some family members wanted to whisk the aspiring singer to rehab last night, while others fought for her to stay to see her mother buried this morning.

“It’s a horrible situation for everybody,” says the close family friend. “They tried to save Whitney, and it didn’t work. Now with Bobbi Kristina, they fear the same thing is happening again and they won’t be able to stop it either. Bobbi Kristina is all Ms. Cissy has left of Whitney. She’s so tired, but she’s ready to fight again to save her grandbaby.”

Those close to the family say they expect Bobbi Kristina to be flown to a California rehab facility as soon as burial services are over.