by Ian Halperin
“I’ve just spoken to Whitney,” reads Seltzer’s statement. “She is perfectly fine and does not understand why, with everything going on in the world right now, they have to find new rumors to dig up. She is home in New Jersey with her family.”
It would be another year before she would finally go public to admit she had a problem when she appeared alongside Bobby in a riveting hour-long ABC Primetime Live special with Diane Sawyer.
Sawyer started the interview by telling Whitney that her audience is going to be watching at home and “staring at you physically,” asking, “How many bones can we see? Is she sick?”
She steers around the question until Sawyer calls her appearance “scary thin” and speculates that the singer may have anorexia or bulimia, as some of the media had reported. Whitney denied she had an eating disorder, and when Sawyer asked about reports that it’s “because of drugs,” she partially concedes the point. “Now, I’ll grant you, I partied,” she said.
Persisting, Sawyer noted the tabloid headlines: “Whitney dying, crack rehab fails.”
Suddenly animated, the singer said, “First of all, let’s get one thing straight. Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let’s get that straight, okay. We don’t do crack. We don’t do that. Crack is whack!”
Having ruled out crack, Sawyer asked whether the problem had been caused by other substances.
“Is it alcohol? Is it marijuana? Is it cocaine? Is it pills?” she demanded.
Whitney hesitated. “It has been at times.”
“All?” Sawyer asked, incredulous.
“At times,” she sheepishly replied.
Whitney goes on to complain that “I love to sing, but it’s just not fun anymore.”
Sawyer asked her, “If you had to name the biggest devil, the biggest devil among you.”
Whitney’s response was remarkably self-aware.
“That would be me. No one makes me do anything I don’t want to do.”
Yet despite her semi-acknowledgment that she has abused drugs over the years, she never admitted the extent of the problem. When Sawyer asked her whether she thought of herself as an addict, she coyly stated that she was addicted to “making love.” For years, Whitney liked to boast in interviews about the quantity and quality of the sex she and Bobby were having, as if to answer the doubters, so this revelation wasn’t all that unusual.
When Bobby joins the interview, he appears to have a different agenda, insisting that his reputed drug use was limited to smoking pot for his bipolar disorder. “Every now and then, you know, I smoke a joint,” he said. “Every now and then, you know. It’s not an everyday thing. It’s maybe every other day. But it’s not an everyday thing. But it, it, it keeps, it keeps, it keeps me calm.”
Sawyer then asked about other drugs.
“No. No. I never have,” he replied. “Never have and never will. That’s, that’s another thing that used to get me so mad.”
Sawyer concluded the interview by asking Whitney where she would like to be ten years from that time. “Retired, looking at my daughter grow up, become a great woman of God. Grandchildren.”
At this point, nine-year-old Bobbi joins her and Sawyer asked her if she liked to sing. “Yes, and I want to be like my mommy and daddy,” the girl replied with an impish grin. Then Whitney interjected, “Early in the morning, she and I would have private time together when nobody’s around. And I’ll sneak up to her room, about six, and I’ll get in the bed with her and I’ll say, ‘OK, we gotta get up in a little while.’ And I’ll rub her stomach, wake the stomach up, wake up your back, wake up the mind, wake up the, you know, body. And talk.” Bobby brightens up. “You know, the perfect thing is like, on, like, a Sunday or something like that, when we like, like, sit and, you know, we get to watch TV or like, listen to gospel music or have breakfast together,” she said.
Mother and daughter then sing a brief duet and hug each other playfully.
The night after the interview, the controversial Fox News host Bill O’Reilly interviewed Dr. Ira Kramer, the director of substance abuse from the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services on his show The O’Reilly Factor. He started by asking Kramer what he saw when he watched Whitney’s admission.
“Well, I saw somebody who’s in trouble,” the doctor replied. “There’s no question about that. She’s very sad. It really moved me, and it reminded me more than anything of Billie Holiday, the great talent.”
Kramer also took note of something that Whitney had said during the broadcast, “It’s not an everyday thing.” He took that to mean that she was still using.
O’Reilly then launched into a tirade against the singer, saying she had a “sense of entitlement” and had squandered her talents. He seemed especially disgusted by the appearance of Bobbi on the broadcast.
“You’re a degenerate if you’re talking drugs and you have a little daughter in your house. That’s what you are. You can get out of it, you can become not degenerate but there’s no denial. These people know what they are.”
When Kramer interrupted to note that she had a “disease,” the belligerent host observed that she could afford any clinic in the world but refused to seek help. When the subject shifted to Bobby and his own addictions, Kramer speculated that Whitney was “codependent on her husband.”
O’Reilly was unmoved. “So that’s her fault for marrying an idiot.”
They conclude the interview by agreeing that she needed to seek help, which was also the general consensus of the media, which weighed in over the next week. But still she declined to seek treatment.
By 2003, the couple had moved to a home in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta. It was from this address that Whitney called 911 just after eight thirty PM on the evening of Sunday December 7, to report a domestic dispute. She did not identify herself.
When police arrived, she informed them that she and Bobby had an argument that had escalated into a physical altercation in which he hit her face with his open hand.
The police report notes a “bruise” on Whitney’s cheek and a cut on the inside of her upper lip. “She wasn’t hysterical or anything, she was very calm,” Corporal Kurtis Young told the media about her demeanor.
Three months later, in March 2004, Whitney’s publicist, Nancy Seltzer, issued a brief statement, “Whitney Houston has chosen to enter a facility for rehabilitation. She thanks everyone for their support and prayers.” It was her first rehab stint, but it wouldn’t be her last.
Dick Clark told Access Hollywood that he had once tried to persuade Whitney to seek help but to no avail. “Finally, she’s addressed it; she’s taking care of it and thank God,” he told the show. But after only five days, Whitney checked out to seek “private care” and most doubted she had overcome the problem.
Meanwhile, Arista’s $100 million bet was looking like a catastrophe. Her first studio album under the deal, Just Whitney, sold a miserable 717,000 copies—the worst of her career—and was savaged by critics. Without Clive Davis to guide her, Bobby joined her to oversee the production, but they couldn’t capture the old magic. Billboard complained that she was “simply going through the motions and her voice lacked emotion and verve.” The album’s first single, “Whatchulookinat,” peaked at a miserable ninety-six on the charts. “If the jittery, bonethin Houston still needs to ask, ‘Whatchulookinat,’ she obviously hasn’t gazed into the mirror lately,” wrote the Atlanta Journal Constitution. It was now quite evident that her personal and professional lives were in disarray.
Her finances weren’t faring much better. In 2002, her father’s company had sued her for $100 million, although it was later revealed that John’s business partner, Kevin Skinner, engineered the suit, and that John had little to do with it. Still, there is no question that John Houston was instrumental in helping guide the business side of the company for years and helped engineer the $100 million Arista deal. Many felt he deserved to be compensated and were bewildered that Whitney didn’t quietly settle the suit.<
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Despite the $100 million Arista deal—which called for the money to be paid out in phases—it appeared that Whitney’s finances were in disorder. Between legal bills, drugs, and lavish spending on “management expenses,” there wasn’t as much in the kitty as people believed.
This was made obvious when Whitney announced to her entourage, including numerous family members, that she was cutting their salaries in half. The exception was her sister-in-law, Pat Houston—Gary’s wife—who had taken over for John at Nippy Inc., and was struggling to keep Whitney’s flagging career afloat.
It was Bobby’s brother and manager, Tommy, who negotiated a reality TV series in 2004 that would have cameras following the couple around as they went about their lives. It would be called Being Bobby Brown. With Bobby’s musical career virtually evaporated, it had been a long time since he had been a reliable cash cow for his family members and assorted hangers-on. It’s easy to understand why Bobby agreed to such a venture. As for Whitney, she would later explain that she did it because she “loved him” and “did whatever he asked because I was his wife.”
By then, Whitney and Bobby had distanced themselves from much of the family, including Cissy, by moving from New Jersey to Atlanta, along with Bobbi Kristina and a few of Bobby’s children. The one constant in Whitney’s life, apart from Robyn—who had left years earlier—had been her Auntie Bae, who had looked after Bobbi from birth. But in 2005, Bae was suddenly let go and returned to New Jersey, leaving both Whitney and twelve-year-old Bobbi rudderless.
“After Bae came back to New Jersey,” Cissy recalled in her memoir, “that’s when things really started to go to hell.”
In the winter of 2005, after the reality show had been shot but before it aired, Gary Garland called Cissy to tell her he believed his sister was “in trouble.” He and his wife, Pat—who managed her day-to-day affairs—lived close by, so they were well aware that things had gotten worse.
Cissy flew down to Atlanta and visited the house with Gary, but when they arrived, Bobby’s sister Tina answered the door and yelled upstairs to Whitney that her mama had arrived. Whitney refused to come down. Cissy later revealed that the house’s walls had been spray-painted with “big glaring eyes and strange faces.” She said it sent a “chill” through her. When she saw Whitney standing at the top of the stairs, she barely recognized her.
Cissy and Gary consulted an Atlanta attorney who advised them of their legal options. They proceeded to draw up a petition for the courts to have Whitney treated “involuntarily.” They returned to the house with two sheriff’s deputies who dragged Whitney to a hospital, where she was treated for a week. Describing the incident, Cissy never uses the word but it’s clear the facility was a mental hospital. She reveals that “Nippy was telling everybody who came to see her that I’d had her locked up.”
When she was released, Whitney flew to Antigua to be treated at the Crossroads Treatment Center, where she ended up staying for a month. For part of the treatment, Bobbi was allowed to join her mother at the rehab. Cissy explains the unusual arrangement by theorizing that Whitney wanted her to “understand what she was struggling with so that Krissi wouldn’t wander down the same path when the time came.”
Two months after Whitney returned from the Caribbean, the first episode of Being Bobby Brown aired on Bravo. And if the public didn’t already regard her as a train wreck, the show confirmed it.
The first episode opens with Bobby’s release from jail after yet another of his many incarcerations—this one after a thirty-day stint for a parole violation in Atlanta. Not long after he gets home, he is seen heading into the bedroom with Whitney as Bobbi pounds on the door, begging to be allowed in. “Be right back. Daddy tryin’ to make a baby,” Whitney yells out. It was a harbinger of what was to come. The series contains many such unseemly private moments, including one memorable scene in which Bobby recalls having to “dig a doodie bubble” from his wife’s butt, prompting her to shout, “That’s black love.” In another scene, Bobby tells his wife “to bring that ass in quick. I’m going to show you what I’m going to do with it.” The eleven episodes follow the couple and their children on family vacations, picnics, Christmas gatherings, and jaunts around town and capture many seemingly candid moments.
The show’s most lasting contribution to popular culture is Whitney’s repeated use of the phrase “Hell to the no,” which almost immediately entered the lexicon of popular culture. She also frequently told her husband to “kiss my ass.”
Throughout the show, Whitney is obviously high on drugs, and her skeletal appearance made it clear she still had a problem.
The Today show’s Hollywood correspondent, Barry Garron, called the show “undoubtedly the most disgusting and execrable series ever to ooze its way onto television” and complained that the show robbed Whitney of “any last shreds of dignity.”
But apart from the few undignified moments, the series also shows a very touching side to the couple, especially in their loving interactions with the children. Bobby repeatedly calls Bobbi “baby girl,” and demonstrates a playful side that is very endearing. Between the buffoonish moments, the show occasionally offered a telling glimpse into the human side of both singers, who had long since become caricatures in the public eye.
Nevertheless, the media weren’t kind and wondered why Whitney would have agreed to participate in such an exercise. A friend of Whitney’s told the Huffington Post that her family and handlers are particularly worried that the raw unedited footage—owned by Bravo—may one day surface and further tarnish her legacy.
“They want to preserve her image as the greatest singer of our generation, not as the troubled wife of Bobby Brown, who turned her from an icon into a joke,” the friend said.
Throughout 2006, reports emerged that Bobby was womanizing openly and had all but abandoned the marriage, while Whitney was back on drugs, following her latest rehab stint and acting as erratically as ever. Reports circulated that he was having an affair with a twenty-eight-year-old hip-hop model named Karrine Steffans, who had bragged about sleeping with him in her 2005 book, Confessions of a Video Vixen. Steffans, however, denied being a “home wrecker.” When People confronted Bobby about a rumor that he planned to divorce Whitney, he denied it. “She’s my friend,” he insisted. “She’s the better half of me. They say opposites attract, but we’re not opposites. We’re one person. We’re loving life, and we’re just trying to be as good to each other as possible.” A few months later, he was asked about reports that Whitney was still using and that the marriage was on the brink. Again, he denied that anything was amiss. “We are happily married. . . . We are going to stand for each other for as long as we live. I adore that woman. She helps me see God. I look in her eyes and I see God.”
In April, Bobby’s sister Tina told the National Enquirer that she had done crack with Whitney on several occasions and revealed that Whitney’s drug use was much worse than anybody had let on. She described regular deliveries of marijuana, powder cocaine, and crack to the Atlanta house and claimed that Whitney was completely dependent on drugs. She revealed that her sister-in-law would purchase eightballs of crack—pieces of rock cocaine weighing an eighth of an ounce each. She’d then cut open a cigar, remove the tobacco, put in marijuana and the entire piece of crack, and then smoke it.
“She saw demons when she got high,” Tina told the paper. “She’d point to the floor and say, ‘See that demon. I’m telling you somebody’s messing with Bobby.’ ” She also sold photos of a room strewn with Whitney’s drug paraphernalia, including crack pipes and spoons. Tina also said, “It’s common knowledge among family members” that Whitney has had affairs with women. “I saw her with a woman a couple of times,” she revealed.
Whitney’s attorney, Phaedra Parks, later told a reporter that Tina’s decision to betray her secrets was a “turning point” for the beleaguered singer.
“Whitney felt very betrayed,” said Parks. “She obviously considered Tina to be family, and for her
to release a story like that with such derogatory comments and allegations—it broke her heart.”
It was easy for some people to dismiss what they read in the National Enquirer because of the nature of the publication, but one of America’s most respected newsmagazines, Newsweek, also revealed that they had spoken to somebody with close ties to Whitney who confirmed much of what Tina had said.
The source described shocking drug-fueled behavior that went all the way back to the early nineties.
“Ironically, Houston’s drug use only grew worse after the birth of her beloved Bobbi Kristina, who arrived after several earlier miscarriages,” the magazine reported. ‘She loved that little girl with all her heart, but she was far too sick by the time her baby came to be the kind of mother she needed to be,’ says a family friend. ‘Sometimes Whitney would be so out of it, the baby wouldn’t be changed for days at a time. That’s what drugs will do to you, and it doesn’t matter how rich you are. An addict is an addict.’ ”
When another member of Whitney’s former entourage, Kevin Ammons, released an insider’s account, Good Girl, Bad Girl, he claimed that Whitney called those who worked for her “the Royal Family.” Vanity Fair’s Mark Seal described how the exposé opened the lid on the behind-the-scenes machinations of those she surrounded herself with during this period. “Everyone wants a piece of the action of the increasingly stressed and distant diva,” he writes. “When their golden goose is abducted by Bobby, the Royal Family resorts to manipulation, fistfights, and threats of violence to protect their interests and remain on the gravy train.” Whitney evidently regarded the book itself as just one more act of betrayal, according to Ammons’s collaborator Nancy Bacon. “As soon as Whitney heard I was writing the book, someone sent me a package,” she told Seal. “I opened it up, and it was a snake. It didn’t smell—it had obviously been sent to me alive. She told Kevin I was like a snake in the grass, because I was writing bad things about her.”