Whitney Houston was the top pick of millions of people all over the world. She won the hearts of people through her Love and soothing songs that many labelled as endearing tunes. She was actually a showgirl who was groomed by Arista Records producer Clive Davis.
Whitney was a huge global icon who engaged the world with great tunes, but according to writer Gerrick Kennedy in his new book, “Didn’t We Almost Have It All: In Defense of Whitney Houston” (Abrams Press), she had a deep mystery which was concealed all through her music career.
The book writer says Whitney Houston was a closeted lesbian. Obviously, she was brought up in a strict environment, but she felt compelled to adjust to the severe upbringing and religious ‘corner’. Thus she hid her sexuality from public till her sad demise, which happened 10 years ago.
According to the author,
“Because Whitney’s music didn’t fit squarely in the boxes expected of a Black girl making music in the ’80s, she was seen as not Black enough. She was ridiculed. Brandished ‘Whitey’ — and endured endless speculation on her sexuality,”
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Whitney was under the thumb of her mom, Cissy, who was a committed church person from Newark’s New Hope Baptist Church and a member from the gospel singing tribe, the Drinkard Sisters.
Cissy was equally a star and backup singer to the King himself, Elvis Presley, and Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul.
Mother Cissy, made Whitney hide her sprouting lesbian sexuality, as per the new book. Before long, Whitney was cleared up in Cissy’s all-consuming craving to drive her into the singing industry.
Cissy realized Whitney was bound to be great some day and she could help get her there. So she rode her hard to the chapel and urged Whitney to sing along to the records she and Aretha had made.
Cissy’s solo career didn’t take off and in spite of the fact that, she was popular as a backup artist, the recording business was whimsical. Whitney’s cousin, who is a chart topping R&B artist Dionne Warwick, also empowered the youngster’s vocal ability, considered to be the family’s ticket out of poverty.
Simultaneously, Whitney was exploring her real identity. In the late spring of 1980, when she was 17, she acquainted herself with a dazzling, thin 19-year-old, Robyn Crawford, when they were both working as youth advisors at the East Orange Community Center in NJ.
According to the author, the companionship among Whitney and Crawford was a bond that formed very quickly, and they were indistinguishable that mid year. “When you saw one, you saw the other” he writes.
Crawford, Whitney’s first dear friend, and close associate outside of her siblings, had Whitney covered and was unflinchingly faithful. With Crawford, Houston could be the spitfire who liked smoking Newports, getting high and doing bizarre stuffs.
According to the author Kennedy, that very year, when Whitney and Robyn came together, “Their lips met, bound by all that had been unspoken between the two. That first kiss was long, warm like honey,”
“It was free and honest – loving and tender,” Robyn wrote in her 2019 memoir, “A Song For You: My Life With Whitney Houston,” after decades of silence. “We both wanted to touch and explore each other, and we did until we fell asleep in each other’s arms.”
Together that late spring, they sunbathed at the Jersey Shore, went to gay clubs, and made out in a rental vehicle prior to being told to move along by a cop.
Robyn led Whitney to club shows, Whitney went to Robyn’s school b-ball games. They additionally traveled to Harlem to purchase a dime pack of weed and cocaine, Robyn wrote.
“We were friends. We were lovers. We were everything to each other. We weren’t falling in love. We just were. We were one: that’s how it felt,” Robyn wrote in her book.
In 1980, they got an apartment together and Whitney vowed to take Robyn any place she was going, Kennedy composes.
Crawford had a good relationship with Houston’s mother, Cissy, but when bits of gossip about the ‘relationship’ got to Cissy, she threw a tantrum and tried to keep the two from walking together in public.
The congregation and the record business were both so homophobic, Whitney realized the issue needed to end when Clive Davis gave her a record bargain. She told Robyn.
“You know how I feel about you and we will always have that,” Whitney told her sweetheart Crawford, Kennedy writes.
Shockingly, Crawford stayed silent with regards to her relationship with the singer until quite a while after her demise. With her 1985 debut single, Whitney Houston was “On Fire Out Of The Gate.” Her first Album took off to No. 1 out of 1987 and by the mid 1990s, she had 10 No. 1 singles.
The relationship with Robyn was over the late spring it started, but Whitney made her an executive assistant – “a job that extended over the long run,” Kennedy writes.
That job never really calmed the bits of gossip. At the point when Whitney needed to fly Robyn out to join her at a black radio show in 1985, radio DJs and the sensationalist newspapers found out about it – and the chat was stunning.
“The public concluded that Whitney was a closet lesbian and she and Robyn were star-crossed lovers doomed by the oppression of society and Whitney’s religious family,” Kennedy writes.
Later, Whitney Houston turned her relationship to Bobby Brown. Their partnership appeared to be legit: Bobby needed to class up his bad boy image and Whitney needed to escape the gay rumors. They tied the knot in 1992.
But then, four years after they got married, Katie Couric got some information about Robyn and the gay tales. This time, she reacted clumsily.
“This wasn’t her world,” she said of Robyn. “I brought her into this madness. She goes, ‘Why am I the target? What did I do?’
“I said, ‘You’re my friend…You play basketball. They think you’re a man.’
“She’s a damn good basketball player. She can beat any guy there is. I love it,” laughing nervously.
For 15 years, Robyn stayed close by as Whitney’s executive assistant and friend.
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It was Robyn Crawford who went to Cissy stressed over Whitney’s cocaine enslavement, thinking back to the ’80s. Cissy faced Whitney who dismissed it and told her mom Robyn was simply going overboard. But her illicit drug use was widespread and spiraling crazy.
Robyn, who is now 61, didn’t talk about her heartfelt history with Whitney for almost 40 years until she published her memoir. Ultimately, she observed strength with her gay spouse Lisa Hintelmann, 49. They wedded and later adopted twins.
“I realized that I needed to save myself,” Robyn wrote in her memoir.
The multiple award winning singer and actress was in her prime in 2009 – but in the background she was fighting numerous evil spirits.
