By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief
NEW YORK, New York-Lifetime aired a two hour documentary Saturday night on the life and legacy of the the late famed pop singer Whitney Houston and her daughter and only child Bobbi Kristina Brown.
While Houston's nephew, godchild and some associates are among those featured in the documentary film, former sister-in-law Tina Brown delivers some of the biggest revelations, and discusses using drugs with Houston, as well as Bobbi Kristina's drug use while Houston was alive.
Tina Brown speaks in the film at length as having known Houston up close as a sister-in-law also struggling beside her with drug addiction and said that both she and Houston were sexually molested as teens and that illegal drugs, mainly cocaine, helped to dull their pain that lingered into adulthood.
Conspicuously absent from the documentary are Houston's mother, Sissy Houston, and her two brothers, Gary and Michael Houston.
Also missing is any true depiction of Bobby Brown, whom Houston accused of domestic violence before she divorced him, his sister Tina painting him as bad-boy- good guy who, unlike Whitney, was a disciplined drug abuser, she claims.
But it was Hollywood entertainment from a Black perspective and it was moving, and, at times, heartbreaking and hard to watch as Houston's career spirals downward.
The close cousin of music icon Dionne Warwick and ex wife of former New Edition singer and solo artist Bobby Brown, Houston died on Feb 11, 2012 at 48-years-old and was found by her brother in the bath tub of the California Beverly Hilton Hotel room where she was in town for a Grammy party thrown at the hotel by record producer and music industry executive Clive Davis, her longtime mentor who discovered her talent, nurtured it, and molded her into a star.
She was remembered at the 2012 Grammy's during a special segment sung by the talented Jennifer Hudson .
A toxicology report says alcohol and a host of drugs were found in her body during an autopsy, namely cocaine, marijuana, the prescription anti-depressant Xanax, Benadryl and Flexeril.
Her daughter Bobbi Kristina, whom she had with Brown, died a similar fate at 22, and was also found unresponsive in a bathtub and consumed by drugs.
Krissi died July 26, 2015, six months after being taken off of life support.
Her mother died three and a half years before her tragic death.
Police said that Houston, once a worldwide music phenomenon, could not be revived following a 911 call from hotel security. Also an actress and producer who starred opposite Kevin Costner in the hit motion picture "The Body Guard," and opposite actresses Loretta Devine and Angela Bassett in the popular women's liberating film "Waiting To Exhale," Houston rose to fame in 1985 with the Grammy winning "Saving All My Love For You," a song on the multi-platinum album "Whitney Houston, which had a string of other billboard hits like "You Give Good Love" and "The Greatest Love of All," a remake of the George Benson hit.
She won six Grammy's, 30 NAACP image awards, an Emmy, and a host of other awards and commendations.
Probably the song most memorable that Houston brought her fans is "I Will Always Love You," a tune that soared the top of the charts too, and was the theme of her love movie with Costner, whom she kisses in the end, marking an interracial embrace between two sex symbols that peaked the public's interest. And she hit the charts with her popular 90s rendition of Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman, sparking women to feel more confident about being women, and during a time when the nation's women's movement was more vibrant.
One of the world's best selling artists, she sold 170 million albums, cd's, videos and singles worldwide.
She had ties to Cleveland and knew as an associate and family friend through Warwick, renowned boxing promoter Don King, a Cleveland native who publishes the Call and Post Newspaper, Cleveland's Black press.
The third child and only daughter of John Houston, a retired army man and small time entertainment executive, and gospel singer Sissy Houston, Whitney Houston grew up middle class in Newark, NJ., and in the baptist church where she sang solos in the youth choir.
Her parents later divorced and her father remarried, dying in 2003 at 82 years old of diabetes and heart disease.
He had sued his daughter in 2000 over a contract dispute over money as her one-time manager, something that reportedly caused heighten tension in the singer's life as she battled substance abuse that saw her career spiral downwards in the late 1990's.
After her father's death she feuded with her stepmother Barbara Houston, who unsuccessfully sued after her husband's death claiming that while Houston was sole beneficiary of her father's $1 million life insurance policy, his estate required that the proceeds go to payoff the mortgage on their condominium, a claim met by a counter suit from the singer-actress for 1.6 million.
Houston married former New Edition singer and soulful crooner Bobby Brown in 1992 and from that union came daughter Bobbi Kristina, who became a singer like her mother, but without the fanfare and fame.
But also with the Houston-Brown marriage came turmoil and strife, with Brown in and out of jail for DUI, domestic violence charges lodged by Houston, and failing to pay child support on some of his then three children with other women before his marriage to the pop star.
Reported physical fights between the couple often overshadowed any good in the relationship, coupled with Brown's infidelity, and widespread publicity about their drug use that Houston announced publicly in a now infamous ABC interview with Diane Sawyer in 2002.
The tabloids had a field day and frequently ran vicious and racist news stories on the legendary R&B singer, some of it true, some of it not true.
Still, she was loved, and admired as the princess of pop for her generation, pioneering the way for popular pop singers like Christina Auguilera and Beyonce.
She divorced the abusive Brown in 2007 after fourteen years of marriage, something people pulling for her celebrated, and she tried several times to make a come back.
But she could not reinvent her mega successes of the mid 1980s and 1990s.
The night of Houston's death in 2012, Brown told an audience of music goers that came to hear him and other members of the revitalized New Edition perform Sat. night at a concert in Southhaven, MS. that he still loved Houston.
"I love you Whitney, " Brown told the somber audience, while choking back tears.
Funeral services for Whitney Houston were held in her hometown of Newark, NJ and aired live on CNN.
Kevin Costner was among the many prominent speakers there, and said he made a wise decision in choosing Houston to play opposite him in the hit 1992 thriller drama "The Body Guard," which grossed $411 million at the box office and made Houston a megastar.
Her entire $12 million estate was left to her daughter Bobbi Kristina in increments, and after Krissi died what was left went to Houston's mother and her two brothers.
Clevelandurbannews.com and-Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest, and the most read independent digital news in Ohio. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
Pictured is Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell
