The reluctant superstar
Pop queen Houston ‘never felt comfortable in the spotlight’
NEWARK (New Jersey): Although Whitney Houston was one of the most famous people in the world, she never felt comfortable in the spotlight.
Houston often spoke about feeling uneasy in her role as a superstar. Even as she prepared to stage a comeback nearly three years ago, she yearned to shed the celebrity centred, tabloid glare that came with her fame.
“I am not geared for it. It goes along with the territory,” she said in a 2009 interview. “I just want to be recognised for my music and for what it does and how it inspires people and how it makes people feel as opposed to talking about Whitney all the time kind of thing. That’s all done. It’s passed, and I would just like to be recognised for my music.”
Houston was recognised for that, and for much more at her funeral held at Newark’s New Hope Baptist Church, where she sang with the choir as a young girl.
While she died last weekend in Beverly Hills, California, amid a media and celebrity crush ahead of her mentor Clive Davis’ pre- Grammy Awards party, her funeral will be a chance to reclaim Whitney Houston the person, instead of the icon.
The church, which seats about 300 people, will be filled with friends, family members and some of her famous connections. Kevin Costner, her co-star in the movie blockbuster The Bodyguard, is scheduled to speak, as is Davis, the music mogul responsible for launching and guiding her career.
After the funeral, Houston is scheduled to be buried beside her father, John Russell Houston, at Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, near where she grew up. — AP