‘A voice of an angel but I could see the Devil in her’
LONDON: Whitney Houston was a singer anointed by God, with a voice from heaven. But she was no angel. I must have met her two dozen times, and from the very beginning I could see the Devil in her.
I first encountered her early on in her career. She flying on to Britain for her first live show at Wembley Arena, on her Greatest Love World Tour in 1986, following the phenomenal success of her debut album Whitney Houston.
When I was introduced, Whitney was perfectly polite, but it was clear she was exhausted. I could see she’d been pepped up with something: her eyes were a little vacant, with a flicker of torment behind them.
It hit me then that Whitney, though marketed as a good, churchgoing woman, was dabbling with narcotics.
Her voice came out of her traditional Baptist church choir in New Jersey.
I’ve been to those churches – the elders are so strict with the children I’m rarely surprised when I hear they later rebel. But those same churches turn their back on you if you transgress.
In her early twenties Whitney was always in the studio. And studios are not drug-free zones.
There was a constant battle over what she was singing – bland numbers for the mass market. They want to sing the blues, but are forced to belt out anaemic mumbo-jumbo. I’m sure this drained Whitney of her spirit and helped her into freefall. People will say it was her association with exhusband Bobby Brown that led her off the right track. But I believe her slow death by showbusiness began long before he arrived. – Daily Mail