Former gal pal: I was Whitney’s lover
Whitney Houston’s former PA has released an explosive memoir revealing her love affair with the tragic star
BEST friend, maid of honour, collaborator, confidante and personal assistant – she was all these things to Whitney Houston. But for years there were rumours that Robyn Crawford was far more than just a friend to the singer. For two decades she was a constant presence at the star’s side, standing by her through thick and thin. Now, after years of dodging questions about the nature of their relationship, Robyn has at last broken her silence about it. As with a lot of things in the I Will Always Love You songbird’s life, it was complicated. “Our friendship was deep and in the early part of that friendship it was physical,” Robyn (55) recently told US talk-show host Craig Melvin. The interview came hot on the heels of Robyn’s recently released memoir, A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston, which has been making waves among fans of the star, whose astonishing five-octave range made her one of the most successful singers of all time.
In the book Robyn recalls her first meeting with Whitney. It was 1980 and Robyn and Whitney were both teens working as helpers at a kids’ summer camp in New Jersey. There was an instant connection.
“It wasn’t anything planned, it just happened. And it felt wonderful. And then, not long after that, we spent the night together.”
The pair continued their relationship in secret for months but when Whitney’s career took off she decided they had to end it.
In her book Robyn recalls Whitney coming to her one day in 1982, around the time she signed her life-changing record deal, and saying, “I don’t think we should be physical anymore.”
She writes that Whitney presented her with a Bible, telling her people would use their relationship against them.
“Whitney told me her mother said it wasn’t natural for two women to be that close,” Robyn says.
The 2018 documentary Whitney highlighted the homophobia the singer faced
from her family and the entertainment business at the time. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2013, a year after Whitney’s death, her mother, Cissy (now 86), said she would never have allowed her daughter to be gay.
In an interview for the 2018 documentary, her brother Gary revealed it was spelt out to Whitney that she should have nothing to do with Robyn. “It was evil. It was wicked,” he said.
Despite her love for Whitney, Robyn accepted their relationship had to change. “The music business was a world we were learning. We didn’t want anything to interfere with where she was going,” she says.
Yet although the physical aspect of the relationship was ending, their love for each other remained steadfast.
“I still loved her the same and she loved me,” Robyn says in her book. “We were intimate on many levels.
“We never talked about labels, like lesbian or gay. We just lived our lives and I hoped it could go on that way forever. We really meant everything to each other. We vowed to stand by each other.”
And that’s exactly what they did.
IN HER book Robyn describes how she consoled Whitney when she was dumped by Michael Jackson’s brother Jermaine after a short-lived romance.
She also claims the man the singer actually wanted to marry was comedian Eddie Murphy but that he blew hot and cold, presenting her with a diamond ring one day then wanting nothing to do with her the next.
When Whitney tied the knot with singer Bobby Brown in 1992 after a threeyear courtship, it was Robyn who stood at her side as maid of honour.
“I was very emotional,” she writes. “I looked into her eyes when I took her bouquet – taking one last look.”
Robyn insists she supported the marriage despite her heartache.
“This was a choice of hers, of someone she said she loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with.”
Although she continued to work for Whitney for eight more years, over time she became uncomfortable with behaviours she observed, including the singer’s escalating drug use and her explosive fights with Bobby.
“I saw and heard him speak to her in ways that were demeaning, he talked down to her,” she says, pointedly adding that she found Bobby (now 50), whom Whitney eventually divorced in 2007, “very annoying”.
But while she had a negative view of Whitney’s husband, Bobby viewed Robyn as a stabilising force for Whitney. In a 2016 interview with American magazine Us Weekly, he said Robyn was the only person who could’ve saved Whitney.
“I really feel that if Robyn was accepted into Whitney’s life, Whitney would still be alive today,” he said.
But sadly, as Whitney’s life continued to unravel, Robyn had to accept the tragic fact that she could no longer protect her friend. In 2000 she quit as the singer’s personal assistant.
“I moved on because I felt like I had done all that I could do, but she knew where to find me,” says Robyn, who’s now a fitness instructor and lives with her partner, talent agency executive Lisa Hintelmann, and their two adopted children.
WHITNEY would contact Robyn from time to time in the years before her death.
For instance, she phoned her in 2003 just as news broke of a blazing row she’d had with Bobby which had resulted in her calling 911.
When police arrived at the couple’s home they found Whitney with a bruised face and bleeding lip.
Bobby was charged with battery but Whitney played down the incident. “She asked how I was doing, and I stopped her, saying, ‘I want to hear how you’re doing’,” Robyn writes. “She said she was okay. I understood I could help her only when she decided she needed it.”
Robyn writes she hoped that day would come but it never did.
In February 2012 she was devastated to hear that Whitney (48) had been found dead in a room at the Beverly Hilton in California, having accidentally drowned in a bathtub. “I felt my inside shattering,” Robyn writes.
After Whitney’s death, she tried to reach out to the singer’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, passing along her phone number to mutual friends.
“I would’ve answered any questions she had and I would’ve just listened,” Robyn says. But Bobbi Kristina never called.
News of her death at age 22 in 2015 left Robyn reeling. The young woman died of pneumonia six months after being put in a medically induced coma after being found unresponsive in a bathtub – uncomfortable echoes of her mom’s tragic end.
Bobbi Kristina’s death, like Whitney’s, was later linked to drug use.
Robyn thinks Whitney told her daughter the truth about their love story.
“I believe Whitney told her about the care and the bond and the trust that we had. Whitney knew I was there for her.”
Penning her tell-all memoir is Robyn’s final act of love.
“I felt the need to stand up for our friendship,” she says. “I have a lot of loving, caring memories.
“Whitney was a beautiful friend.”