[pepBarihepe]

Kinda sad if you ask me. The lady had everything and her demons ended up killing her.

Whitney Houston Dies at 48


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by Nekesa Mumbi Moody, Associated Press | February 11, 2012 8:25 EST

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Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Artists in this Article


Whitney Houston

Bobby Brown



Whitney Houston, who reigned as pop music's queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, has died. She was 48.

Publicist Kristen Foster said Saturday that the singer had died, but the cause and the location of her death were unknown.


Whitney Houston Honored on Twitter by Artists, Executives

At around 8:50 pm (EST), less than half an hour after the news broke, CNN reported that Whitney Houston's bodyguard, Ray, found Houston dead at the Beverly Hills Hilton hotel prior to a party honoring music executive, Clive Davis.

At her peak, Houston was the golden girl of the music industry. From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world's best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the masses with a pop sheen.




Gone But Not Forgotten: Music Stars We Lost in 2011
Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like "The Bodyguard" and "Waiting to Exhale."

She had the perfect voice and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who had sex appeal but was never overtly sexual, who maintained perfect poise.

She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey, who when she first came out sounded so much like Houston that many thought it was Houston.

But by the end of her career, Houston became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming; her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and bizarre public appearances. She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her once pristine voice became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.

"The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy," Houston told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 interview with then-husband Brown by her side.

It was a tragic fall for a superstar who was one of the top-selling artists in pop music history, with more than 55 million records sold in the United States alone.

She seemed to be born into greatness. She was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, the cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick and the goddaughter of Aretha Franklin.

Houston first started singing in the church as a child. In her teens, she sang backup for Chaka Khan, Jermaine Jackson and others, in addition to modeling. It was around that time when music mogul Clive Davis first heard Houston perform.

"The time that I first saw her singing in her mother's act in a club ... it was such a stunning impact," Davis told "Good Morning America."

"To hear this young girl breathe such fire into this song. I mean, it really sent the proverbial tingles up my spine," he added.

Before long, the rest of the country would feel it, too. Houston made her album debut in 1985 with "Whitney Houston," which sold millions and spawned hit after hit. "Saving All My Love for You" brought her her first Grammy, for best female pop vocal. "How Will I Know," ''You Give Good Love" and "The Greatest Love of All" also became hit singles.

Another multiplatinum album, "Whitney," came out in 1987 and included hits like "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."

The New York Times wrote that Houston "possesses one of her generation's most powerful gospel-trained voices, but she eschews many of the churchier mannerisms of her forerunners. She uses ornamental gospel phrasing only sparingly, and instead of projecting an earthy, tearful vulnerability, communicates cool self-assurance and strength, building pop ballads to majestic, sustained peaks of intensity."

Her decision not to follow the more soulful inflections of singers like Franklin drew criticism by some who saw her as playing down her black roots to go pop and reach white audiences. The criticism would become a constant refrain through much of her career. She was even booed during the "Soul Train Awards" in 1989.

"Sometimes it gets down to that, you know?" she told Katie Couric in 1996. "You're not black enough for them. I don't know. You're not R&B enough. You're very pop. The white audience has taken you away from them."

Some saw her 1992 marriage to former New Edition member and soul crooner Bobby Brown as an attempt to refute those critics. It seemed to be an odd union; she was seen as pop's pure princess while he had a bad-boy image, and already had children of his own. (The couple had a daughter, Bobbi Kristina, in 1993.) Over the years, he would be arrested several times, on charges ranging from DUI to failure to pay child support.

But Houston said their true personalities were not as far apart as people may have believed.

"When you love, you love. I mean, do you stop loving somebody because you have different images? You know, Bobby and I basically come from the same place," she told Rolling Stone in 1993. "You see somebody, and you deal with their image, that's their image. It's part of them, it's not the whole picture. I am not always in a sequined gown. I am nobody's angel. I can get down and dirty. I can get raunchy."

It would take several years, however, for the public to see that side of Houston. Her moving 1991 rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl, amid the first Gulf War, set a new standard and once again reaffirmed her as America's sweetheart.

In 1992, she became a star in the acting world with "The Bodyguard." Despite mixed reviews, the story of a singer (Houston) guarded by a former Secret Service agent (Kevin Costner) was an international success.

It also gave her perhaps her most memorable hit: a searing, stunning rendition of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," which sat atop the charts for weeks. It was Grammy's record of the year and best female pop vocal, and the "Bodyguard" soundtrack was named album of the year.

She returned to the big screen in 1995-96 with "Waiting to Exhale" and "The Preacher's Wife." Both spawned soundtrack albums, and another hit studio album, "My Love Is Your Love," in 1998, brought her a Grammy for best female R&B vocal for the cut "It's Not Right But It's Okay."

But during these career and personal highs, Houston was using drugs. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2010, she said by the time "The Preacher's Wife" was released, "(doing drugs) was an everyday thing. ... I would do my work, but after I did my work, for a whole year or two, it was every day. ... I wasn't happy by that point in time. I was losing myself."

In the interview, Houston blamed her rocky marriage to Brown, which included a charge of domestic abuse against Brown in 1993. They divorced in 2007.

Houston would go to rehab twice before she would declare herself drug-free to Winfrey in 2010. But in the interim, there were missed concert dates, a stop at an airport due to drugs, and public meltdowns.

She was so startlingly thin during a 2001 Michael Jackson tribute concert that rumors spread she had died the next day. Her crude behavior and jittery appearance on Brown's reality show, "Being Bobby Brown," was an example of her sad decline. Her Sawyer interview, where she declared "crack is whack," was often parodied. She dropped out of the spotlight for a few years.

Houston staged what seemed to be a successful comeback with the 2009 album "I Look To You." The album debuted on the top of the charts, and would eventually go platinum.

Things soon fell apart. A concert to promote the album on "Good Morning America" went awry as Houston's voice sounded ragged and off-key. She blamed an interview with Winfrey for straining her voice.

A world tour launched overseas, however, only confirmed suspicions that Houston had lost her treasured gift, as she failed to hit notes and left many fans unimpressed; some walked out. Canceled concert dates raised speculation that she may have been abusing drugs, but she denied those claims and said she was in great shape, blaming illness for cancellations.

[Sx1qBli0]

Idgaf

[stoneeZef]

the pipe finally got her

[topbonusescod]

the pipe finally got her

Yep... thats my vote... drugs

[vqIo7X2U]

Yep, It is a sad ...... like her or not, you can't deny she could sing.

RIP Whitney Houston



edit maybe heart attack? OD

Edit again; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9nPf7w7pDI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19LPgLKrgLE

http://www.metro.us/boston/entertain...page0?rand=967

[stoneeZef]

Yep, It is a sad ...... like her or not, you can't deny she could sing.

RIP Whitney Houston



edit maybe heart attack? OD

Edit again; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9nPf7w7pDI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19LPgLKrgLE

Definitely could sing, I never bought any of her music though........those cocaine people seem to croak sometimes way after the fact, could be due to the fact of cocaine abuse causing cardiac dysrhythmias

[vqIo7X2U]

Me either willie, just heard her on the radio or tv, drugs can also cause an enlarged heart which leads to arrhythmias.

[2CNWXAqN]

dead in the bath.........what a waste, soon as she got involved with bobby brown her fate was sealed

[Vemnagelignc]

No more so than I feel for this woman and her family.

STALNAKER, Elizabeth A. (Johnson) - Age 45, passed away on Tuesday, January 24, 2012. Born in Charleston, WV, January 5, 1967, the daughter of the Rev. James L. and Nila Johnson. She was preceded in death by her father. She is survived by her husband, Timothy Stalnaker; her mother; two brothers, MSgt. Rob and Keta Johnson, MSgt. David and Ginny; four nieces and two nephews.

It's always bothered me that the "stars" deaths were somehow more important than others...let me take that back..it just doesn't bother me it pisses me off!

Ya know, I think I'm much more greatly saddened by Elizabeth A. Johnsons death than I am of Whitneys. Elizabeth seems like one great woman, I read the thoughts that some of her friends expressed on the funeral home website and I'll admit I'm in tears, she was a really good person...i would have gladly died in her place. This was an obit I picked at random and I'm sure the same applies 1000 x over.

IMHO, too much star worship is placed onto those people.

[LypeReexy]

As someone who was brought up in a black church she undoubtley heard the Gospel there or somewhere along her life.
Did she use the gift that God gave her for HIM??

Does not look that way, she used it for the WORLD and as it usually goes she sold out to the world and even knew she had "devils" (her words, not mine)

Psalms 18:49 Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the heathen, and sing praises unto thy name.

[Kokomoxcvcv]

She Could Sing Act and Model.

Dam..........What a fricken waste.

When you dont cherish what you have been given ......it eventually gets snatched.

[ReggieRed]

I agree with Libertytree. Too much importance is placed on the lives and deaths of entertainers.

[Old-old-Ivy]

I agree with Libertytree. Too much importance is placed on the lives and deaths of entertainers.

I don't know, a lot of people feel connected to them in one way or another. But feel free to start threads with obituaries of non famous people... Reading and commenting in this thread puts importance on the life and death of Whitney Houston!

Anyway RIP!

[Ijkavylo]

She fell off quick...

[gugqgbyzlp]

I kind of see the lives of famous people more like fables or allegories then just a normal human life. They start out with luck or skill, and have the energy and drive to capitalize on it and become famous. Then you can see the trajectory they take based on their choices, personal flaws, etc. So it's more like a story book than a personal thing.

[Kokomoxcvcv]

Don Cornelius .............suicide
Whiteny Houston .........overdose


I wonder who number three is?

[Ettiominiw]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udNHsk57f24

[glagoliska]

Whitney Houston is reportedly "broke as a joke".
January 24, 2012, 8:45 am

The 48-year-old singer - who has overcome crack cocaine addiction - has allegedly spent all of her fortune and is being financially supported by her record label Arista, which has given her an advance payment on her next album.

A source told RadarOnline.com: "Whitney's fortune is gone. Music industry heavy hitters are supporting her and her label is fronting her cash against her next album, but no one knows when that will be released ... She might be homeless if not for people saving her. She is broke as a joke."

Whitney - whose ex-husband is Bobby Brown - is believed to be in such a dire financial position she has even had to resort to contacting friends for small loans.

The source added: "She called someone to ask for $100. It is so sad. She should have Mariah Carey money, and she's flat broke."

However Houston's publicist has since refuted the claims as "not true".

In August 2001, Whitney signed the biggest record deal in music history at the time with Arista/BMG, renewing her contract with the label for $100 million to deliver six new albums.

She released her last LP 'I Look to You' in August 2009. Article @ the West

[pE71J5Sw]

Don Cornelius .............suicide
Whiteny Houston .........overdose


I wonder who number three is? Whitney was #3 - Etta James was the first one in the series (ironically, their ages are prolly sequential).

[repldoinfo]

I don't see her death as sad or loss...only as her time was up. She had her time in the sun, it was over.
No one lives forever.
The loss is to those that were close to her, her daughter, family and friends.

She did not die in her prime like so many others...Marvin Gaye, to name one.
She should be honored for her achievements and remembered for the gift she brought to the world.