I’m embarrassed to say that when I heard the news of Whitney Houston’s death, I was almost as shocked that she was still alive as I was that she had just died.
Mind you, nobody was a bigger fan than I. It’s just that I’ve been commenting on her demise for so many years that I had long since forgotten that she had a voice so good it sent chills up and down my spine when she sang something as mundane as the U.S. National Anthem:
Who would have thought when Whitney married Bobby 13 years ago that she would rival him in bringing public disgrace and humiliation upon their family?
Yet, it is undeniable that – despite Bobby’s record of bad behavior – Whitney’s diva tantrums, public displays of dementia, and drug-induced anorexia have been the prevailing features of their doomed marriage. Now she seems determined to match Bobby’s frequent arrests by being repeatedly committed to drug rehab.
Can anyone even remember that heavenly voice and beautiful face that descended among us like an angel in the 1980s? Now juxtapose that with her drugged-out renditions of gospel spirituals during her wacky ‘retreat’ to her ‘homeland’ (Israel) last year. And just look at how she’s deformed God’s brilliant construction of her face, making her look like a cross between a woman wacked out on crack and an anorexic?
Still, as a firm believer in redemption and the power of prayer, I pray Whitney recovers from her drug addiction and recaptures just a little of that magic she had before things went so horribly wrong.
Good luck Whitney!
(Whitney Houston: crack is wack … and back! The iPINIONS Journal, March 25, 2005)
Alas, it was not to be – as all of the people who were forced to walk out of her dazed, confused, and cringe-worthy concerts in recent years will attest. Indeed, virtually every one of her “comeback” performances only exposed the utterly devastating, croaking effects of drugs on her voice. So much so, in fact, that her last album, I Look To You (2009), had to have been nothing more than a triumph of technology over talent.
Not to mention all of the canceled performances and interviews, as well as the public displays of intoxication, that made her fall from grace such a sad, pathetic public spectacle.
This is why, unlike those who are showering her with praise today, I have only lamentations. But I see no point in belaboring them. Especially because the road she travelled to perdition has been traveled by so many other superstars: Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse being only the most recent casualties.
Of course, listening to the eulogies you can be forgiven the impression that it was just last year when she performed her iconic rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner and made her star-is-born movie, The Bodyguard (featuring her incomparable version of I Will Always Love You); whereas that was 1991 and 1992, respectively.
Meanwhile, who can deny that singers like Mariah Carey and Jennifer Hudson have more than filled the void Whitney left all those years ago? But I appreciate that, for most people, context (i.e., the full picture) is hardly relevant today.
All the same, I am constrained to note that it’s entirely in keeping with her despairing, diva personality to upstage tonight’s Grammys by killing herself yesterday.
After all, instead of her having to watch wistfully as the music industry heralds the rise of the likes of Adele and honors the longevity of the likes of Bruce Springsteen, this show will now feature the industry’s biggest stars falling all over themselves to sing not just her praises but her songs too (and far better than she ever managed to do over the past decade or so). Which is why I’m not even going to watch the Grammys, let alone write my annual post-show commentary.
Then there’s this: Her voice could no longer keep her living in the style to which she’d become accustomed, and reports abounded that she was facing imminent bankruptcy. Therefore, it might just be that this was Whitney’s way of saying, “Calgon take me away”….
I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone’s shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can’t take away my dignity(Lyrics from the Greatest Love of All)
You were so right Whitney; they couldn’t take away your dignity. But you gave it away.
My heart goes out to her parent who fought so heroically to get her back on the right path, complete with an intervention that required police support.
Whitney was found dead yesterday from a suspected drug overdose in the bathtub of her hotel room in Beverly Hills. Curiously enough, she may have telegraphed this fateful end on Thursday night by binge-drinking herself into a boisterous and self-destructive mess at a nightclub, where she was the center of attention for all the wrong reasons for the last time. She was 48.
Farewell, Whitney.
NOTE: I pray potheads like Rihanna take heed. For, as Whitney herself confessed, marijuana is just the gateway drug….
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Wack on crack…
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Sunday, at 9:51 am