by Ian Halperin
At the same time, it became evident that both sides of the family were spending as much or more time consulting lawyers and publicists as they were the doctors.
Infuriated by the description of Nick Gordon as Bobbi’s husband, her father had his attorney issue an unequivocal statement to the gathered media: “Bobbi Kristina is not and has never been married to Nick Gordon,” Christopher Brown of the firm Brown & Rosen insisted. At the same time, they let it be known that their office was “currently investigating the events that led to the hospitalization of Bobbi Kristina.”
The words struck onlookers as strange. Why was Bobby’s lawyer conducting an investigation rather than leaving the matter to law enforcement authorities?
In fact, Roswell police had been conducting their own investigation practically from the moment the ambulance took Bobbi Kristina away. Within an hour, they had questioned Gordon and Max Lomas as well as the XFINITY cable technician who had arrived at the house that morning. Word soon leaked that they didn’t like what they had heard. Nor did they necessarily believe that the incident that left Bobbi in a coma was an accident. Less than a week after Bobbi was pulled out of her bathtub, police officials made no secret of the fact that they were pursuing an investigation. And, although a number of media outlets reported that Nick Gordon had become the target of the investigation, my own sources informed me that the evidence pointed to more than one suspect and that the evidence was murkier than was being reported.
Officially, the police would only say that “the matter may or may not result in criminal charges being brought against individuals.” Nick and Max had already lawyered up. But as long as Bobbi remained alive, it remained an open question whether police would end up laying charges of homicide or merely attempted murder against their suspect should they determine that foul play was involved.
Meanwhile, the world was watching the tragedy unfold, and Twitter was ablaze with celebrities sending their thoughts and prayers:
La Toya Jackson, who knew from personal experience what the family was going through, was one of the first to weigh in:
“Let’s All Send Love Light & Prayers To Bobbi Kristina Brown! Wishing Her A Healthy & Speedy Recovery!”
Social media, in keeping with its tradition, had witnessed more than its share of cruel comments and jokes about Bobbi’s condition. One of the tamer ones was:
“I guess it’s true then that all little girls turn into their mothers eventually.”
Others were outright racist. Responding to the sick barbs, Brandon Williams tweeted:
“People are really out here making jokes and laughing at Bobbi Kristina? That’s sad. Pray for that young woman. Send positive energy her way!”
Mariah Carey, who had recorded a well-known duet, “When You Believe,” with Whitney, offered:
“My thoughts and prayers continue to be with Bobbi Kristina. Sending love and support to the family. God Bless.”
Lady Gaga sent out a message to millions of her Little Monsters:
“Praying for Bobbi Kristina. Monsters let’s all together send our love & healing energy to Whitney’s daughter. World send her strength.”
Meanwhile, as conspiracy theories and accusations swirled about the events that left Bobbi in a coma, the Reverend Al Sharpton issued his own plea: “Let’s all pray for Bobbi Kristina. Let’s not speculate on what happened, let’s ask God to intervene.”
Whitney’s longtime friend Missy Elliott revealed that Bobbi’s mother had once asked her to look out for her daughter. “Bobbi is like a little sister to me,” she said. “I have been very close to her mother. One thing that her mother said to me before she passed away was to make sure Bobbi Kristina was straight, so my prayers for healing [are] that she comes out and be around people that love her.”
CHAPTER THREE
It wasn’t an easy birth. Cissy was laid up at home for almost two months after she gave birth to Whitney Elizabeth Houston on August 9, 1963. Having saved up some money from her increasingly frequent recording sessions, John’s first task was to find a house in a better neighborhood. In the fall, they closed on a nice house on Wainwright Street in a section of Newark with brick row houses occupied by young families. There was enough left over after the down payment to put in a new kitchen and living room.
The family was thrilled to move out of the old third-floor walk-up. Cissy’s parents had always preached the importance of making sure your kids did better than you. With the move, they had truly moved into the middle class.
With Gary now in school and Cissy working a day job at the RCA plant, John stayed home with young Michael and the new baby, who Cissy recalled was always up to mischief even before she could walk. John took to calling her “Nippy,” after a comic book character who attracted trouble, and soon nobody called her anything else.
An early starter, young Whitney was walking by six months and would constantly tease the family’s German shepherd Thor, who they acquired when they moved to the new neighborhood. By the time the baby turned one, John’s divorce finally came through, paving the way for him to marry Cissy.
Meanwhile, Dionne Warwick had started her solo career, which would eventually see her become one of the most successful female artists of all time. Dee Dee soon followed, signing a deal with Mercury, leaving Cissy to make a growing name for herself as a background singer on studio session work. For some time, at John’s urging, she had been looking to start a group of her own, and by 1966, she had assembled the core of the quartet that would become known as the Sweet Inspirations. The Sweets were not looking to become the next Supremes. Their forte was background vocals—a musical art form that was still in its infancy. Most background session acts were trios, but Cissy had added a fourth voice to sing an octave lower than her own and create a distinctive sound. With the new sound, recalled John Houston, “They began to wipe out all the other background singers.” At first, the women went into the studio to sing background vocals for whatever solo artist the studio assigned. But in 1967, Atlantic Records was toying with creating a new sound for a rising star named Aretha Franklin. As a young girl, Cissy had listened to the radio sermons of Aretha’s father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin, known as the “Million- Dollar Voice.” On occasion, the Drinkard Singers had appeared on the same bill as Aretha when she was touring the gospel circuit but still a relative unknown. Now, Atlantic had big plans for her and the Sweet Inspirations were chosen to be a part of those plans.
Previously, background singers were expected to arrive at the studio at the appointed time, do whatever the producer told them, and disappear. But Atlantic gave Cissy and the Sweets the freedom to spend hours in the studio working out the background parts on Aretha’s songs and experimenting with different variations. The Sweets, she recalls, became known for a certain musical “punctuation” that would come to characterize the songs on which they were featured. If the singer, for example, sang the line “Do you love me?” they would come back with a rousing “Yes, I do.”
Her years singing in church had taught her that the listener had to feel the song, and now she put that background to good use. With the Sweet Inspirations backing her up, Aretha exploded onto the charts with a steady stream of early hits, including “Chain of Fools,” “I Never Loved a Man,” and Cissy’s favorites, “Natural Woman” and “Ain’t No Way.” On the latter tune, Cissy worked in a high solo behind Aretha’s lead vocals, ensuring an unusually large profile for a background singer. Such flourishes soon got her and the group noticed, and they were given the opportunity to record their own singles.
Though their specialty was backgrounds, suddenly it seemed that everybody wanted them. That same year, the Sweets went into the studio to back up former Them singer Van Morrison, who had recently gone solo and was recording a new single, “Brown Eyed Girl.”
Its success cemented the group’s reputation for what she called “taking a record over the top and making it a hit.” Meanwhile, Aretha had asked the group to back her on tour, and Cissy’s grueling schedule
meant that John was left to care for the children much of the time.
While she was on tour one night in Las Vegas, she called home to discover that Nippy, now four years old, had fallen while playing with her brother and got a wire coat hanger stuck down her throat. When she was rushed to the emergency room to extract the object, doctors told John that the hook had just missed perforating her vocal cords.
Nineteen sixty-seven was also the year that Newark erupted in race riots as angry disaffected black youth went on a violent looting rampage through the streets. The worst of the rioting took place a fair distance from their neighborhood, but it was close enough for the family to see the smoke and hear the gunshots. Soon after, they started looking for a new home in the suburbs, but the only way they could afford a move was for Cissy and the Sweets to continue touring. With John working only periodically, they depended on Cissy’s income.
The tour dates down south were particularly difficult, given Jim Crow attitudes that still permeated the region. “We found racism on the road at just about every turn,” Cissy later wrote, recalling that they were often turned away from hotels or restaurants because of their race or encountered open hostility.
By 1969, the Sweet Inspirations were in high demand. After working on sessions with Dusty Springfield in Nashville and Jimi Hendrix in New York the year before, they got a call from Elvis Presley, who had heard the Drinkards at the Newport Jazz Festival years earlier. He was preparing to headline the International Hotel casino, and he wanted the Sweets to back him.
While Cissy was captivated by his “drop dead gorgeous” looks, John established a rapport with the King and his crew—spending hours chatting about the business at the hotel coffee shops between shows. The information he gleaned from these sessions about the industry, she recalls, would prove to be invaluable once Whitney’s career took off.
John’s charm was legendary. Cissy recalls him once asking, “Now Elvis, are you sure you’re not black? ’Cause you sure got a lot of rhythm, man.” Elvis would retort that John looked a little like his daddy. Although she complained that she often got bored performing the same shows over and over night after night, Cissy also established a rapport with Elvis, who loved gospel music and enjoyed having four devout church ladies backing him up. One day, he told her that the sound of her improvised countermelodies made him think she was squirrelly. That became the King’s nickname for her. When he gave the group diamond bracelets to thank them for their work, hers was inscribed “To Cissy” on one side, and on the other, it simply said “Squirrelly.”
Singing with Elvis for two months, Cissy missed the kids terribly, but she and John had decided that Las Vegas, still known as Sin City, was no place for children. Back in New Jersey, their friends Phyllis Hardaway and Ellen White—known as Auntie Bae—looked after the kids. Six-year-old Nippy, she recalls, spent most of her time watching TV or listening to her favorite singer, Michael Jackson. But the older kids were finding the separation difficult. Michael in particular often burst into tears for no reason.
Returning home in the fall of 1969, Cissy and John managed to spend some quality time with the children, but the road beckoned. The money was good, but tensions were beginning to form in the group, as the other members wanted to wear revealing costumes onstage like the other background acts. But Cissy’s moral upbringing kicked in. “I was onstage to sing, not bounce around and flaunt my business,” she later recalled.
Preparing to go back on the road one day, Cissy was packing the car when she spotted the kids playing nearby. As she reached to give Michael a kiss, he pulled away and started sobbing. Joining them, the other children burst into tears as their mother looked on in devastation. That’s the day she made the decision to quit the Sweet Inspirations.
For years, John had been clamoring for Cissy to embark on a solo career. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for. He successfully pitched Cissy to Charles Koppelman, an industry stalwart who had signed the Lovin’ Spoonful in 1965 and was now running the music division of a new label, Commonwealth United. With an advance of $15,000, John and Cissy went looking for a new house. They found just the place in the respectable suburb of East Orange just up the Garden State Parkway from Newark.
For the first time, each child had their own bedroom and, best of all, a big backyard pool to while away the sweltering New Jersey summers. The pool soon turned into a neighborhood gathering place where Gary, Michael, and Whitney entertained their growing legions of friends. And as kids came and went, so too did the clothes and toys that Cissy bought them. She theorized that they felt guilty that they had so much and were eager to share the bounty with others. Whitney was particularly generous.
One day, Nippy was watching Michael Jackson performing with his brothers on TV, when she announced that she was going to marry that boy, adding that she was going to become a big star and buy her mother a house.
Although Cissy loved her boys, Nippy was her pride and joy. Something about her manner—loving, friendly, trusting—stole Cissy’s heart. When she took her on errands, she recalls little Nippy marching right up to strangers to wish them good morning. When her mother tried to explain why that wasn’t a good idea, the girl would dismiss her concerns with “Oh, Mommy.”
She thought everybody was her friend, Cissy recalled. That’s why it was especially heartbreaking for her when she later discovered a different reality.
Embarking on her solo career, Cissy was given a song to sing called “Midnight Train to Houston.” It didn’t seem right to her, so she decided to tweak the title and change “Houston” to “Georgia.” Hamstrung by a lack of promotion, the song received limited airplay, to the constant frustration of John, who told everybody who would listen that it would be a huge hit if they would just put some money behind it. Three years later, Gladys Knight and the Pips recorded the song, and it struck gold.
Meanwhile, the solo career of Cissy’s niece Dionne was exploding. Her single “I Say a Little Prayer” had just sold one million copies—one of nineteen top one hundred hits Dionne would enjoy during the sixties, making her the second best-selling female vocalist after Aretha Franklin. The family was excited for her success and none more so than little Whitney and her brothers, who were often invited to join their aunt on her private plane as she jetted around the world on tour. Cissy continued to record with Aretha, who Nippy called Auntie Ree when she accompanied her mother to the Atlantic studio one day. “Cissy brought her to one of my recording sessions,” Franklin later recalled. “She was around 9 or 10. I think Cissy had instructed her to be very quiet because she didn’t say too much after that. She was just very quiet and very attentive.”
Contrary to popular belief, Franklin was never her godmother, but rather an “honorary aunt.” Her appointed godmother was in fact the singer Darlene Love, whose best known song “He’s a Rebel” went to number one in 1962. Love remembers once visiting the family when Whitney was young and sharing a bed with the young girl. “I was pregnant at the time, and she’d go, ‘What do you want, what do you want?’ There was a store on the corner where she’d run down the street and buy fruit for me. So charming from Day One,” she told Rolling Stone.
Nippy had started attending school at Franklin Elementary, where she was frequently bullied because she came to school in expensive dresses, while the other girls wore jeans. Cissy had threatened to “whoop Gary’s butt” years earlier when she found out her oldest son failed to fight back when a schoolmate attacked him. But Whitney pleaded that she didn’t like confrontation. She just wanted to be friends. Her mother, however, was determined to open her eyes to reality. “That’s not the way the world is, baby,” she recalls telling her. “Sometimes you just have to tell people to kiss your ass and keep on walking.” When groups of mean girls occasionally chased Whitney home, her older brother Michael would often stand up to them. But when Cissy witnessed such a confrontation one day, she invited the girls to whip her ass first if they wanted to take on her daughter.
Whitney would
later recall the trauma of being bullied. “In grammar school, some of the girls had problems with me,” she later recollected. “My face was too light. My hair was too long. It was the black-consciousness period and I felt really bad. I finally faced the fact that it wasn’t a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems. When I decided to become a singer, my mother warned me I would be alone a lot. Basically, we all are. Loneliness comes with life.”
Once she learned to ignore the other girls’ taunts, Whitney focused on her studies, in which she excelled. John’s mother, Elizabeth, had been a teacher, and now, that’s what Whitney said she wanted to be. Every day, she’d gather her brothers in front of a toy chalkboard and pretend to teach them while they went along with it. When their attention strayed or they giggled, Cissy recalls, Nippy would pick up a ruler and smack them on the head with it as they burst into laughter.
In the early seventies, many public schools were beginning to experiment with progressive education theories that discarded the rote learning of the past and encouraged children to learn independently. Franklin Elementary was no exception. When Whitney was in the sixth grade, the school adopted an open-classroom curriculum where children were allowed to wander from room to room, and classes were often held outside or in the halls, while kids worked on projects of their choosing and studied at their own pace. As a firm believer in traditional education, Cissy did not approve of these so-called progressive methods and began exploring private options. She was impressed by a Catholic all-girls school in Caldwell called Mount St. Dominic Academy and raised the idea with Nippy, who she assumed would welcome a more disciplined academic environment, especially in light of the bullying at Franklin. But Whitney was horrified at the idea and pleaded to remain in public school.