And then there were people who still didn’t recognize Whitney at all, even up close. One time, she was at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills with Silvia and wanted to look at a bracelet. She waited while not one but two white men behind the counter assisted another customer, who was also white. Silvia asked if someone could help them and was told to wait, so she went over to a young man working at another counter and asked him for assistance. He pulled the bracelet out of the case for them, and after a few minutes, he said admiringly, “You’re Whitney Houston.” All of a sudden, the two salesmen were available, but Silvia wasn’t having it. She told them, “Oh, now you want to come over? Before, you thought you could just ignore us because we are a Spanish girl and a black girl? Now you find out the black girl is Whitney Houston, so here you come.” Whitney, who had been quiet up until then, asked the young man who had helped them, “Do you work on commission?” He nodded, and she said, “Go get your manager. I want to buy it from you.”
Around this time, Robert De Niro became an admirer of Whitney’s—one she had trouble shaking. The first time he called, we were in London shooting the video for “How Will I Know.” Peter Barron, then head of video production at Arista, told me De Niro wanted to take Whitney out to dinner. At nearly midnight the following day, after a sixteen-hour shoot, I answered the phone in her hotel room and heard, “This is Bob De Niro. Can I speak to Whitney?” I relayed the message, and she looked at me and said, “No.” A few months later at a music industry event in New York, a stagehand came to Nip’s dressing room to say that Robert De Niro was holding for her on the backstage pay phone. “He must be crazy,” Whitney said. This time she took the call and I don’t remember exactly what she said to him, but she did let him down gently.
One afternoon, Mr. Houston called with some “exciting news” about an amazing house he’d found for us. It turned out to be more surprising than exciting: Neither Whitney nor I had mentioned anything about wanting to move. Our apartment was a stone’s throw from Whitney’s office and a bridge away from Harlem, and we were both perfectly content. Mr. Houston insisted that we at least ride over to the property to look at it. After an interminable drive, we ended up in a part of New Jersey I’d never been to before. The house was newly constructed, and you could tell. There was no landscaping, and while there was an outdoor area that looked like the perfect place for a pool, one hadn’t been installed.
The house was modern, and unique, with its round rooms and floor-to-ceiling windows that flooded the space with natural light. She seemed at home, even happy, as we walked the property, which was surrounded by sandy dirt. When she asked me what I thought, I told her I liked it but that it might be too far from the city—far from everything, actually. Mr. Houston defended the decision, saying that Whitney was getting too famous and needed privacy. She didn’t dispute that, so she bought her first home for more than $2 million.
I was surprised by the change. We would be giving up the convenience of living moments from the city. Sure, with a two-bedroom condo I felt we could have used some extra space, but not a twelve-thousand-square-foot house that we had absolutely no idea what to do with.
After we’d been home for a while, Carol took out Whitney’s weave. Under her care and direction, Whitney’s hair had grown so much under the weave that it now almost skimmed her shoulders. I was glad to see how long and healthy it was and hoped this meant the end of her hair concerns.
I was standing there in her new kitchen. Whitney came out of her room, and Cissy, who had come over unannounced, took one look at her daughter and said, “You took your hair out? You look like a damn man.
“What are you going to do when you have an interview or something?” Cissy continued, oblivious to the wounded look on Whitney’s face. Whitney remained silent, so I said, “We thought she would give her hair a chance to breathe and let Carol condition it now that showtime is over.”
“What are you going to do when you have to do something?” Cissy said, ignoring me.
Whitney looked me in the eye and said, “Well, that’s true, I will have some things to do.”
“You just came off the whole tour. You do what’s best for you,” I said. To my mind, that meant maybe to hire a trainer and follow a regimen, to learn to take care of herself and maybe get involved with something other than singing, like rest. After some time off the road, I was starting to see that idle time was not Whitney’s friend.
“You can’t be walking around looking like that,” Cissy insisted.
At that time, my own hair was still shoulder length and I didn’t like to get it wet. Whitney, who swam like a fish, used to say about me, “Robyn’s hair governs her life,” and she was right. Like many black women, I acted as if water was the kiss of death. Eventually I would cut it all off and free myself, but Whitney was now moving in the opposite direction. After Cissy’s pronouncement that day, it seemed that a weave became a permanent feature.
Meanwhile, rumors about Whitney and me were flying as high as her career. At that point, Whitney and I hadn’t been physical for several years, so the whole thing was pretty ridiculous to me. The speculation initially made us tighter, because we knew our truth. Whitney often wanted me by her side, and she didn’t want anyone new jumping on her bandwagon. “I already have a friend. I don’t need any more.” Our bond was cemented, and we kept what we’d shared close. Her mother didn’t like it at all and told Whitney, “It’s not natural for two women to be that close.”
Every time I went to the supermarket, I saw at least one tabloid magazine with my face on the cover. I tried to ignore the gossip, but the Houstons couldn’t abide it, least of all Cissy. With her, I learned to just roll with things.
I had nicknamed Cissy “Big Cuda,” short for “Barracuda,” because of the aggressive way she carried herself. It got to the point where I’d put on this bright-eyed look and cement a smirk on my face whenever she started talking. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, but I was no longer a child and didn’t need her affirmation. I just wanted to keep the peace. I knew at some point the time would come for me to push back, to stand up for myself, but not yet.
Having been recorded at head-spinning speed, Nip’s second album, Whitney, was poised for release in June of 1987. One day before the album’s release, I was at Arista for meetings, and the head of R&B promotions told me that radio stations were calling up in gossip mode asking what the story was between us. During interviews about her new album, out of nowhere they would ask Whitney something like, “So . . . are you dating anyone?” She politely diverted such conversations by saying her private life was her own, but they’d ask anyway. The first single off the album, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” was an instant hit, and even after that huge source of buzz was out, an interviewer would drop a non sequitur: “So, is there someone special in your life?”
After a radio interview, we’d get in the car and Whitney would say, “Really? Are you dating anyone, motherfucker? Did you get laid last night? How was it?” That’s what she wanted to say to them. We laughed and let it roll off of us. They did the same thing to Dionne, after all, and other women were usually subjected to this, too. When Whitney was released, she became the first woman to debut an album at number 1; her second album was making history, but even that wasn’t the main focus.
The tabloids were one thing, but when Richard Corliss of Time magazine decided to include the rumors in a big article that ran in July 1987, it seemed to make this a standard line of questioning, even for reputable publications. I was present listening to the interview, and Whitney called me over to the reporter and asked me to share my thoughts on all the speculation about our relationship. “I tell my family, ‘You can hear anything on the streets, but if you don’t hear it from me, it’s not true,’” I said. I was still trying to figure things out about myself, so I wasn’t ready to declare anything to my family, let alone to the public.
Whitney added, “People see Robyn with me, and th
ey draw their own conclusions. Anyway, whose business is it if you’re gay or like dogs?”
I didn’t like it when she talked like this, and we discussed how she might best handle herself in situations like these, but she never wanted to find the time to sit down and prep for interviews. And this rumor had stamina. When she compared homosexuality to bestiality or spoke so rigidly about herself as a man’s woman, it seemed to me as if she was desperately trying to throw off the hounds. Her protests were too much and sometimes unkind. However, she was 100 percent right that whomever she was sleeping with was her business. When the Time article came out, Corliss described me as “severely handsome,” which felt like a low blow. My mother didn’t like it, either, and told me, “You’re a beautiful woman,” reassuring me as she had done when I was much younger.
“You okay?” Whitney would frequently ask after we’d run a paparazzi gauntlet or left a press event where someone scrutinized our relationship for the millionth time. Once we were back in the car, she’d tightly squeeze my hand, as if making sure I was still there. She wanted to reassure me that no matter what people were saying about me—about us—we were steady, that I was important to her and worthy. Her shout-out to me on the liner notes for Whitney read, “Robyn, you are my friend and you are also quite an assistant. Be strong for you are a child of the Almighty God and you walk in his love and in his light. I love you, Whitney.”
Eleven
Tell On Your Damned Self
Whitney was a little strange: As open as she could be with me, she was also very private. She loved her quiet and spoke only when she wanted to. But when she was in a mood to talk, there was no stopping her. Some days she spent more time talking to Jesus than she did to me. I would hear her in her bedroom, but I was careful not to listen in on such a private act. I knew she was alone, in prayer, but sometimes she sounded so animated—the way you speak to another person—that one day I asked her, “Nip, who were you talking to in there?” She gave me a surprised look and said, “Jesus. Who do you think?”
There were times when I would be in that big, empty house, bored, just waiting for a sound. I might hear Whitney moving around a little, but the true indicator was the click of her double doors opening and the muffled sound of her shuffling in the white terry-cloth hotel slippers she loved to wear out into the long tiled hall leading to the kitchen and returning with her usual snack of a bowl of cereal.
Whitney was not a morning person, and if she worked all night, you’d be lucky to see her rise before late afternoon. She was a homebody who enjoyed swimming, lounging by the pool, watching television, playing with MisteBlu and Marilyn—and, above all, listening to music. I was usually up early, dressed and ready for action. When Nip finally surfaced, in her pajamas, I’d immediately launch into what I’d been doing while she slept. She would put her index finger to her lips, silently shushing me.
Whit and I talked about how we needed to change our bad habits by replacing them with good ones. I suggested bike riding and then jogging. One day she agreed, and we went out for a run down the road near our house. When we finally made it to the last corner of our half-mile run—which really was more like a half-jog and half-walk—the plan was that we’d sprint to the finish. But instead, Nip said she was tired and thirsty and wanted a cigarette.
As a housemate, Whitney was boring as hell unless some music got down. Once she got the music going, though, the show was on and she’d come alive. Silvia and I enjoyed the energy generated by Whitney’s playlist: Chaka, Stevie, Change, Walter and Tramaine Hawkins, Andraé Crouch, the Winans, and Fred Hammond. Or we’d all sing along with BeBe and CeCe, René and Angela, and El DeBarge, the music blaring through the house and outside, and then soon we three would be in the pool!
Our cooking skills had not improved much and, constantly on the go, we needed to eat healthy to keep up with the demands of her schedule. So, I suggested we hire a chef. Whit gave me the green light and then told me a few days later that she needed to hire Aunt Bae for the job. She had taken care of Whitney and her brothers when their mother was on the road, and now Cissy said Bae needed money, so Nip felt she owed her. “I really don’t want her in my house; she’s nosy and will just report back to my mother what’s going on. But she can really use the money. It’ll be all right,” Nip said.
Though she kept her word by hiring Bae, Whitney would allow only Silvia to bring a tray with a prepared meal to her bedroom or to her hotel suite when on the road. Once, when we were on tour, Bae was staying at another hotel and was cooking meals and bringing them over to Nip’s hotel, where Silvia and I were also staying. The room phone rang, I answered, and it was Bae saying she was coming up with the food. I told Nip who it was and was about to give Bae the room number when Nippy said, “No. Tell her Silvia will come down to get it.”
Of course, Aunt Bae and Cissy didn’t care if that was how Nip wanted things to go. They seemed to feel that they should be the closer ones. And this would set the tone; if they didn’t like something that Whit said, wanted, or did for herself or someone else, even if it was crystal clear that the decision came directly from Whitney herself, Silvia’s ass was always grass—and I would never be clear of the mower, either.
In the midst of the first tour the previous year, Nippy Inc. had moved to a new building. The space was gutted and renovated, and the new, largest office was meant for Whitney. Cissy threw a fit when she saw she didn’t have an office. So, to keep the peace, Nippy gave her own office to her father, and her mother took the one originally designated for her father. The boss was now in a much smaller office next to mine. By the time we completed the move to the new office, John Houston had become president and Cissy was anointed vice president, though she was rarely present. From then on, unless we were traveling, touring, recording, or doing another artist-related activity, I went in every day, with or without the boss.
After the release of Whitney, I took on an even greater role with requests, scheduling, and special projects. I was also handling scripts, traveling to LA with Whitney for meetings with writers and producers, putting together TV and radio spots for tour announcements, hiring photographers for album covers, documenting tours, and working closely with creative teams on televised specials and endorsements. All requests for Whitney Houston came through me; you name it, I was on top of it.
But my hands were tied when I didn’t know financial details. John Houston would not share anything regarding contracts or money with me. This frustrated me greatly: I was representing Whitney, and not knowing exactly what the fine print said made me look weak and Nippy Inc. look disjointed. I didn’t have the juice to make big decisions or weigh in effectively, and if Nip wasn’t around, I had to go to John and ask questions—which he hated, asking me why I needed to know. Still, I kept at it because I really wanted to learn as much as I could. Nippy’s career was going up, up, up, and I felt the need to strategize in a way that would keep us ahead of the game.
One evening, Whitney and I went over to visit Michael and his wife, Donna. The four of us were doing coke. It was getting late. Nip knew we had work the next day, and I wanted to go home, so I kept asking her to pack it up, but she didn’t want to. I was prepared to leave and take the car, but after dabbling myself, I didn’t think it was a good idea to drive. Desperate to get out of there, I called Silvia.
Silvia came, and as I was walking toward the car and about to open the door, Whitney yelled, “Who the fuck do you think you work for? I pay you!” Michael and Donna were standing in the window as Whitney railed, “Oh, so you’re a chauffeur now. I pay you to be a damn chauffeur, huh? That’s okay. You and I are gonna talk when I get home. Take Robyn’s ass home before I kill her.” As I sat in the passenger seat like a lost puppy, Silvia looked at me as if to say, “What the hell? Now I’m in big trouble,” but I just looked ahead and said, “Drive off. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
Cocaine was making me feel isolated and off my game. I was growin
g concerned again about our increased drug use. By nature, I awakened with the birds, but if I was up late partying, I dreaded the morning. It wasn’t that I felt I couldn’t stop; it was the fact that I was using at all, even casually. My brother rarely used drugs, and Bina never did. My mother wasn’t even a smoker, and as far as I knew, my father didn’t indulge in anything besides beer and Tareyton cigarettes. I was the only one in my family who was athletic (other than my father), and before I’d started messing around with drugs I’d typically refused to take any medicine, even aspirin.
Wanting to understand why I was getting high, I called a meeting with my family: I asked my mother, my brother, and my sister to come to my mother’s home. I also called my father. Mom wasn’t too happy about that. Having survived his violence and raised my siblings and me solo, she didn’t feel he deserved to be in her space. I was coming down when I made the call, coming out of being up all night. And Whitney was still at home getting high.
“Where is this coming from?” I asked them, wondering if they had done similar things when they were young but hadn’t told me. Did either of them struggle with alcohol or drugs? I wanted them to know I needed help.
“And you felt you had to call your father here,” my mother said resentfully.
I wanted to stop doing what I was doing and was looking for some kind of guidance. I felt like I was failing. After my father left the meeting, Mom told me, “Don’t ever call your father to my house again. You need to take better care of yourself and think more about who you are.”
A Song for You Page 13