by Bobby Brown
Of course I had met Janet a few years earlier when New Edition was running around her brother’s house. I had had a crush on her for years, so it was exciting as hell when I discovered that she was also attracted to me. Janet gave off this image of being all sweet and innocent, but when it was just the two of us she could be wild and uninhibited. She was nearly three years older than me, but the age difference didn’t seem to matter much. We were young, horny and extremely taken with each other. Nature didn’t need a whole lot of help in getting us in bed.
One vivid memory I will always have is of one of the times we spent the night together at the Le Dufy Hotel, a small luxury spot in West Hollywood. Janet was trying to leave and I didn’t want her to go. So when she tried to pull off in her car, I playfully jumped on top of the hood. But as she flashed me that blinding smile, she kept driving the car. Her smile that day was incredible, sexy, sweet, a smile I fell in love with. I think the whole world fell in love with it. A few years later, director John Singleton used her smile as the final image we saw in the movie Poetic Justice.
Janet kept slowly driving the car through the garage with me on the hood, daring me to risk staying on when she hit the street. She would stop, hit the gas pedal, and then drive a little bit more. It was a really nice moment. I rode on that hood until just before the car emerged from the garage. If my memory is correct this was one of the last times we were together and it was just pure fun.
Because Janet was already with Rene Elizondo Jr., the guy who would eventually become her husband, Janet and I were sneaking around a lot, with her friends helping us rendezvous in different places. We would meet at one of her friends’ house, or her friends would bring her to meet me at a hotel. It was difficult, but I took whatever I could get of her time.
Janet didn’t drink, she didn’t smoke. She didn’t have any of those vices. She would curse sometimes, but that was all. When we were together, we did more laughing, kissing and talking than anything else. I was really into her. I think I was in love with her before I even met her. In fact, I went on TV and told the world that I was in love with her and wanted to be with her for the rest of my life.
One of our favorite dates was meeting at this Häagen-Dazs ice cream shop off Ventura Boulevard. We both really liked strawberry ice cream, so we would get our cones, sit down in a corner and giggle together. In a lot of ways, it felt like high school dating. Or what I imagined high school dating was like. And we weren’t all that much older than high school students. Since neither one of us actually went to high school, maybe this was our way of having those types of regular adolescent experiences—even though we were two of the biggest stars in the music business.
This was back in the days when you were allowed to talk on the phone while you were driving, so when we were in our cars we would call each other. Of course our phones were those huge, clunky gray bricks. Remember those?
I was so taken with Janet that I bought her a car for her twenty-third birthday on May 16, 1989. It was a white Jaguar with this gorgeous blue interior. And to add a touch of class, I put an incredibly cute little white chow puppy inside the car. Janet was blown away by the present—but she wouldn’t accept. She was still with Rene, so she couldn’t be coming home out of the blue with a brand-new car and a brand-new dog. I guess I hadn’t thought it out very well. So I wound up keeping the car and the damn dog.
One of the biggest challenges Janet and I faced, in addition to her relationship with Rene, was the fact that we were both so unbelievably busy. I was in the middle of touring for Don’t Be Cruel, and she was working on what would become Rhythm Nation, so we just didn’t have much time together, and it was inevitable that things would come to an end. Her friends were telling me she wanted to leave Rene so that she could be with me, but it was hard for her because of her family. It wasn’t until a few months later that I found out what that really meant.
When Janet and I officially broke up, it was quite an ugly scene. We were together again at the Le Dufy Hotel when it happened. We were lying together in bed after having sex—as it turned out, for the last time. The talk turned serious. Janet told me she loved me, but she wasn’t “in love” with me. Her friends had already told me that her father didn’t want her to be with a black man. Then Janet confirmed this.
“Yeah, my father won’t allow me to be with a black man,” she said.
I couldn’t believe it. What kind of woman was she, a black woman allowing her father to make such a crazy ultimatum? I exploded. Cursing the whole time, I pulled her out of the bed and pushed her out of the room, naked. She screamed when she realized what I was doing. Just before I slammed the door, I saw the shock on her face. She was in the hall without a stitch of clothing. The small part of me that was thinking rationally realized I couldn’t do that to her. I mean, this was Janet Jackson. So I opened up the door again and threw a sheet out at her.
If she couldn’t be with a black man, then she could get the fuck out of my room.
I was stunned that Janet was so weak, letting someone else control her life like that—never mind succumbing to some self-hating racist shit. How ironic that she had just blown up with an album called Control. Here I am, one of the most successful artists in the business, swimming in millions of dollars, and you can’t be with me? Because of your father? Who’s really in control here? It made no sense. I was devastated and confused.
I was so hurt by Janet’s rejection that I went in even harder after that, having sex with any woman in my vicinity who was interested. My dancers were fair game, as were many other women in Hollywood. This is when I really started messing around with the beautiful actress LisaRaye McCoy, who was trying to get her career off the ground and a few years later would hit it big in Ice Cube’s movie The Players Club. I was also seeing a lot of one of my dancers, Shane. I admit it now: I was a fiend.
But then I began a relationship that would not only change my life but also shake the entire music industry to its core.
Whitney
So many words have been written about my marriage to this woman, so many people on the outside wildly speculating about things they didn’t know anything about, that I almost feel like I need to draw some type of diagram refuting every crazy rumor that has circulated about us over the years. But instead of focusing on the crazy rumors, I will just give you the details of our incredible love story and let you see how much we were truly made for each other, how much genuine affection flowed through our relationship and our household, how much most of the stuff in the gossip rags was pure bullshit.
It all started at the Soul Train Music Awards in April 1989, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. That was the first time I ever met Whitney Elizabeth Houston. “Don’t Be Cruel” had been nominated for Soul Train’s Best R & B/Urban Contemporary Song of the Year, and the album was nominated for Best R & B/Urban Contemporary Album of the Year, while “My Prerogative” was nominated for Best R & B/Urban Contemporary Single by a Male. (I won Album of the Year but lost Song of the Year to Anita Baker’s “Giving You the Best That I Got” and lost Best R & B Single by a Male to Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.”) I also performed that year, so I was busy getting up and down to go all night.
As I sat there in the audience before my performance, someone bumped against the back of my head. It was Whitney, but I didn’t say anything. She was speaking to the Winans, who were sitting behind me. Then she did it again, like two more times. I got aggravated, so I finally turned around.
“Excuse me,” I said.
No response from her.
“Excuse me,” I repeated.
Still no response.
What the hell?
Her back was to me, so I tapped her. She turned around. Slowly.
“You keep hitting me in the head,” I said.
“I know,” she responded.
With those two words, she changed everything. I turned back around with her words ringing in my ears. What just happened?
But I had to perform, so I
pushed it aside. As I walked away, she was sitting on the end of the aisle and just staring at me. I stared back at her. We kept eyeballing each other until I went backstage for my performance.
I stepped out and did my thing onstage, bringing my usual energy and intricate choreography. Ironically I was introduced by Dionne Warwick, who was Whitney’s aunt. I was wearing a cream-colored linen pinstripe suit with a long flowing jacket that tied around the waist like a robe. At one point I took off the jacket and threw it to the side.
Whitney told one of her friends, “Go grab his jacket!”
So at the end of my performance the friend snatched my jacket. When I came off the stage, I was looking for it but didn’t see it. By this time Whitney had come backstage. When I saw her, she was holding the jacket in her hand.
“Can I keep it?” she asked with that sly Whitney smile.
“All right,” I said. While it was a necessary part of the suit, I didn’t think I would ever wear that suit again. “You can have it.”
It was clear that something was happening. We exchanged information. This was still 1989, so that meant home phone numbers.
One day a week or so later I got inspired and called her.
“If I asked you to go out with me, would you say yes?” I asked her. It wasn’t the slickest line, but it did have its charm.
“Hell yeah!” she said.
And with those words, we began one of the most intense, crazy, passionate relationships the world has ever seen. We shared some mind-blowingly romantic days and nights around the globe; sometimes I’d wake up in some exotic location lying next to one of the most beautiful women in the world and I knew I was living in some kind of fairy tale.
I have incredible memories of our life together that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. One of our favorite spots was Jamaica. We would hang out in our lovely villa, smoking some powerful ganja and eating delicious jerk chicken day and night. If you’ve ever had jerk chicken, prepared by Jamaicans who know what they’re doing, you’ll immediately understand how you could become obsessed with the stuff.
The Bahamas was another spot that we frequented. We were part of the celebrity contingent that opened the Atlantis resort in 1998, so we always had a soft spot for that magical place. We had close friends there, so we’d enjoy hanging out with them and smoking weed together.
But of course our fairy tale couldn’t be sustained forever.
Even while I was in it, it would feel like those fifteen years of our lives flew by in a blur.
At the time Whitney and I started seeing each other, I was the hot guy in the industry. Women were talking; word was getting around about me. The way I danced, the way I moved, women wondered if I brought that same freakiness and those same moves to the bedroom. They were curious to find out if the myth was true. So in my mind, Whitney was just putting in her bid.
I should point out that I was still seeing Janet Jackson when Whitney asked for my jacket. One minute I was rolling around with the industry’s reigning sex symbol, the next minute I was in love with its undeniable queen. Janet apparently had been doing some talking as well: I found out she was telling her friends how great I was in bed. Our world was so small, once the grapevine was buzzing word zipped through in a hurry.
I thought Whitney was incredibly beautiful, talented and sexy, but at the time I didn’t consider her to be my “type.” I didn’t really like tall, slim girls. I liked them short and thick. Like Janet. But there was something that happened when Whitney and I were together. We just clicked. We went out on a date and we found out we both smoked Newports. And she wasn’t afraid to smoke around me. I couldn’t smoke around Janet. Actually I chose not to smoke. I didn’t want Janet to know I smoked cigarettes. When I went out with Whitney and she pulled out a Newport, I was like, Oh damn! Okay!
Whitney and I had our first date at a cute little restaurant in LA, and then we wound up back at the Hotel Bel-Air. When I walked through the door of her hotel suite, all I could smell was her perfume filling up the room. It was a special perfume that she had imported from Paris and it was intoxicating. When I smelled it, I thought of sunshine and vanilla and all things pretty. She would wear that scent for all the years I knew her. It was her signature. Probably everybody who was close to her will associate that smell with Whitney for the rest of their lives—me included.
When I got to the suite, Whitney wasn’t in the living room, but her scent certainly was. I breathed deeply, taking it all in. I was able to take a step back at that moment and consider the craziness of the situation—the fact that I had just stepped into the private hotel suite of this American goddess.
Let me give some perspective on who Whitney was in 1989: She had already become the biggest female pop star in the world by then, at age twenty-five. She had had seven consecutive number one singles on the Billboard charts. She had already won two Grammy Awards, and her first two albums were well on their way to selling forty-five million copies between them. Yes, forty-five million. As far as black female entertainers go, there wasn’t a bigger star in the hemisphere. And only a handful of white performers were as big as her.
When she got into the room, Whitney brought out some champagne for us to drink. It was the first time I ever saw Cristal. We drank the champagne, talked for a while, really enjoying each other’s company. I liked being around her. I didn’t try to sleep with her that first night. I wanted to approach this situation differently than a normal conquest. But when I went back to my hotel room I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Over the next couple of months we would talk on the phone maybe every other week. We were both incredibly busy. I was still on the Don’t Be Cruel tour while Whitney was working on her next album, which when completed was called I’m Your Baby Tonight and featured productions by LA Reid and Babyface. After the success of Don’t Be Cruel, everybody wanted to work with those two guys. After I’m Your Baby Tonight, which was the top R & B album of 1991 on the Billboard charts, Whitney wouldn’t release another album for eight years—though she did do some groundbreaking work in 1992 on the soundtrack to her movie The Bodyguard.
Around this time, Eddie Murphy invited me to the set of Harlem Nights, the movie he was filming with comedy legends Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx. I had gotten pretty close to Eddie in the last few years. He had been a friend of New Edition since our early days, when we first started going out to LA. Eddie was the first major entertainer who took us under his wing. He’d invite us over to his crib, where he’d barbecue and we’d play basketball and hang around. We were all from the East Coast, we were all young (though he was about eight or nine years older than us), but he had already become a superstar. We got along really well with him.
I knew that Eddie had dated Whitney, so I thought I would casually ask about her. He didn’t know why I was asking about Whitney—probably because he was so busy asking me about Janet. It was during a break in the filming when he made his way over to me. He had just finished filming a hilarious scene in the movie where he apologizes to Della Reese for shooting her in her pinky toe, after she had whupped his ass. While Della Reese is in the kitchen making a sandwich, Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor persuade Eddie to apologize to her. All the while, Foxx and Reese are yelling at each other, exchanging funny put-downs filled with every curse word in the book.
After filming opposite Della, Eddie came over to me, pleased to see me on the set. So I took the opportunity to ask him about Whitney, trying to be as casual about it as possible. We were kind of huddled in the corner. My brother and my security guy were nearby.
“She’s cool,” he said. “She just smokes too much weed for me.”
“What? She smokes weed? I didn’t know that,” I said.
Whitney Houston was too wild for Eddie Murphy? That sure opened my eyes. But instead of chasing me away, it actually made her more attractive.
Eddie leaned in and asked me what Janet was like.
“She’s good people,” I said.
But Eddie wante
d more.
“What about that ass? Is it as soft as it looks?” The man had his priorities.
I nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
Eddie leaned back. His mouth dropped open a little bit and I think he even shook his head.
“Damn.”
That’s all he said. That’s all he needed to say. And he had heard what he needed to hear.
I wasn’t trying to sneak behind Eddie’s back or anything with Whitney. I just wanted to gauge his level of interest in her. Was he in love with the woman? Did he see a long-term relationship with her in his future? Clearly he didn’t. I had heard what I wanted to hear too.
Soon Whitney started popping up at my shows in different cities and countries. Unannounced. It was almost like I was being stalked, but in the best way. She booked a show at a festival in Japan, a Dick Clark event, because I was headlining the show and she wanted to be there. And I’m pretty sure she took less money than she would normally have gotten.
In my camp, Whitney’s unannounced arrival was greeted with about the same level of enthusiasm as a venereal disease. Not only did I have my baby LaPrincia with me, but her mother, Kim, was also there, as was my son Landon. But Whitney didn’t seem to care. She made it perfectly known that she was interested in me; she didn’t pull any punches. On the other hand, Kim didn’t care that it was Whitney Houston—she would have been upset no matter who it was. In addition, I was dating one of my dancers at the time. So when Whitney breezed in, I could see the sadness on the dancer’s face. It was all in her eyes. I felt kind of bad about that—but certainly not bad enough to send Whitney away.
As for Kim’s face? All I saw was anger. Blistering, hot anger.
Usually everybody hung out in my dressing room, eating my food, and I usually didn’t care. But this night I made everyone go to their own dressing rooms, and I had Kim put in a different room altogether. So when I got offstage, Whitney was in my dressing room by herself, waiting. It was all pretty crazy and, frankly, awkward as hell for me. I introduced her to LaPrincia, who was still a baby. In all honesty, Whitney wasn’t too interested in the baby. She was there for me. She tried to play with baby girl a little bit, but LaPrincia wasn’t having it. It didn’t take long before she said, “I want my mommy.” So I had her taken back to Kim. I wasn’t yet thinking that Whitney would one day be the mother of my child, so I should pay attention to that sort of thing. I was still young. I was still playing.