Whitney gay lover
OPINION
by LZ Granderson
It feels as if everybody's got something to say about Whitney Houston, the pop star and actress who died in 2012 at 48.
Her mother, Cissy Houston, wrote a book in 2013, detailing her deficit. Her friend, BeBe Winans, wrote a book titled "The Whitney I Knew." Her producer, Narada Michael Walden, wrote a publication about what it was like to work with her. Michael Essany, Kevin Ammons and Pat Houston have also published books about an icon who was as loved by countless angels as she was haunted by persistent demons.
Hell, in a span of 10 months, two documentaries about Houston were released (in 2017 and 2018). At this direct you would think any new work about her might not be a big deal. And yet one couldn't help but note the visceral response to the news of Robyn Crawford's new memoir, due out next week, "A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston."
For years there were rumors that Crawford was more than Houston's personal assistant earlier in the star's career, and she is featured in the two documentaries about Houston, even though she declined to sit down for interviews for both films. In her new manual, Crawford confirms those suspicions. Before "The Bodygua
Book Excerpt: Whitney Houston’s Sexuality Explored in ‘Didn’t We Almost Contain It All’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Feb. 11 marks 10 years since Whitney Houston died, her accidental drowning in a Beverly Hilton hotel bathtub especially tragic as it occurred just hours before the annual Clive Davis pre-Grammy gala was due to launch in a ballroom on the ground floor. Davis discovered Houston when she was barely 20 years old and would mentor her through the decades, but behind the scenes, one of Houston’s longest and closest relationships was with childhood friend-turned-lover Robyn Crawford, as journalist Gerrick Kennedy describes in his forthcoming book, “Didn’t We Almost Have It All: In Defense of Whitney Houston”(out Feb. 1). In an exclusive excerpt, the author explores the singer’s sexuality.
In the 1980s, if you were queer and navigating Hollywood or the music industry, a shot at mainstream success often came at the expense of hiding parts of yourself. Going into the shadows of the closet, for many, was the only option. Even the Village People shied away from their queer origins when they hit it big with their deliciously gay anthem
Well, it’s confirmed Whitney was a bisexual person
I’ll just preface this by saying I’m firmly in the bisexual not lesbian camp. Whitney and Robyn did have a amorous relationship but Whitney ended it in 1982 when she was still 19. She dumped Robyn by giving her a Bible. They truly were friends from that signal on.
“We wanted to be together,” says Crawford, “and that meant just us.”
Whitney ended the physical part of their relationship early on, soon after she signed a register deal with Clive Davis at Arista.
The singer broke the news by giving Crawford a offering of a slate blue Bible one day in 1982.
“She said we shouldn’t be physical anymore,” writes Crawford, “because it would form our journey even more difficult.”
“She said if people locate out about us, they would operate this against us,” says Crawford, “and back in the ’80s that’s how it felt.”
And so, she says, “I kept it secure. I found comfort in my silence.”
There was also pressure from Whitney’s family, including her mother gospel singer Cissy Houston. “Whitney told me her mother said it wasn’t natural for two women to be that close,” says Crawford, “but we were that close.”
Their closeness spawned persistent speculation abo
After four decades of speculation that they were romantically emotionally attached, Robyn Crawford has spoken her truth: She loved Whitney Houston. In her heartfelt autobiography released late last year, "A Song for You: My Being with Whitney Houston," Crawford shares that their love was real but stifled, a romance that, at first intimate and sexual, wavered as Whitney rose to fame in the '80s.
Whitney and Crawford became friends as teenagers, during the summer of 1980 while both working at the East Orange Collective Development Center in New Jersey. Their relationship deepened into romantic love, and finally, with Crawford as Whitney's assistant, a trusted professional alliance.
A loving, dignified tribute buoyed by Crawford's generosity of spirit through her many grievances, including the loss of Whitney, the autobiography is the first time Crawford has disclosed the extent of their bond. It reveals in intimate, evocative detail many lesser-known facets about how Whitney operated and their supportive, tumultuous common experiences on tour and at home: the rise, the fall, the result. The tragedy of Whitney's death.
Crawford, as depicted in the book, is no saint, either. She's rem
Inside Whitney Houston’s classified torment for being homosexual, falling for a woman
Whitney Houston was the flawless face for the MTV-dominated 1980s, “a glamorous showgirl shaped by a Svengali” – the powerful Arista Records producer Clive Davis.
But she also possessed a deep, dark secret: she was a closeted sapphic, writes author Gerrick Kennedy in his new guide, “Didn’t We Almost Possess It All: In Defense of Whitney Houston” (Abrams Press), out Tuesday.
Feeling pressure to conform to her strict religious upbringing and the norms of the time, Whitney hid her sexuality from the widespread till her tragic death, which happened 10 years ago this week.
“Because her music didn’t fit squarely in the boxes expected of a Dark 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,” the author notes.
Raised in Newark, NJ, Whitney was under the thumb of her mother, Cissy, a devout church member of Newark’s New Hope Baptist Church and a member of the gospel singing clan, the Drinkard Sisters.
The Drinkards played the “Chitlin’ Circuit,” performing at inky venues throughout the South