RIP Whitney Houston

Michael Jackson. Amy Winehouse. Now Whitney Houston. When the biggest names precede ‘has died’ I always find myself affected most by the fact that it feels shocking, but not a surprise; upsetting, but somehow expected.

So many jump in so quickly to say that ‘they had it coming’ or that, as drug abusers, they do not deserve the headlines or the memorials or the tears. Those who make jokes so soon, after anger, I worry about; I can’t help but think what it says about them and what they think they have to prove.

I can see why people fail to understand why a whole world stands in shock when a major celebrity is found dead in a hotel room. I can see why they compare these deaths to the millions of others that go unnoticed and unheard. I can see why people may find it necessary to tell their Facebook friends that the day Whitney Houston’s death hit the headlines also marked the anniversary of the murder of innocent young Jamie Bulger. But none of these things mean that her death should not be treated with respect, as should the views of those, like myself, who were saddened by the news.

Saturday. After a midnight Bloody Mary doused in Tabasco, I said goodnight to my friends and walked home, alone. My boyfriend was already asleep so I made a brew and opened up my laptop. At the top of my Facebook feed someone had written something along the lines of “OMG Whitney, is it true?” Google. Whitney Houston. News. Last hour. It was true; 16 minutes before, it had been confirmed that Whitney Houston had been found dead in the Beverley Hilton Hotel. I couldn’t believe it – sadly, just as much as I could believe it.

Two days before, I had seen a scathing account of what turned out to be one of her last nights out. The tabloid published pictures of her looking drunk and dishevelled, the captions pointing out that the roll of flab barely visible in her black dress was proof that she was letting go. You’d think that after her death, the editors may scoop the tone out of the gutter just a tad. Wishful thinking. Instead, pictures of the bath where she was found and not long later, the headline ‘Did Whitney Houston ‘binge on drugs and alcohol to numb pain of being a secret lesbian?’ The same paper is now splashing about pictures of Whitney Houston’s death certificate, of her distraught mother Cissy (surely an intrusion of privacy and grief) and listing those expected at her funeral as though it’s the guestlist to a cheap nightclub. The kind of persistently intrusive, shamelessly immoral media circus that Whitney blamed for her anxieties when she was alive, refused to show an ounce of respect when it matters the most. Disgusting.

When writing this piece,  I felt I should attack those I saw to be attacking her. The tabloid press, the jokers on Facebook and the Twitterers who chastised anyone who voiced their sadness. But then I thought, I’d be stooping to their level. So I’ll leave it at that.

What stands out most to me at times like this, as it does every time a major celebrity or successful figure passes away, is that all the money in the world cannot buy happiness. Whitney Houston, ‘The Voice’ told Oprah Winfrey that she was happiest before ‘The Bodyguard’. She was projected into a world beyond anything she ever imagined and despite growing up around fame and riches, she suddenly “became an icon, before I even knew what one was.”

I’m not going to pretend I know everything about Whitney Houston. I don’t. I have fond memories of singing along to her Greatest Hits album at full blast in my living room and dreaming that one day my voice would be even half as good as hers. I would be both her and Mariah Carey and cry a little bit whilst warbling my way through ‘When You Believe’. My best friend, Jenny, would play the piano as I sang and we performed ‘Greatest Love of All’ at a concert at her church. We made people cry. I wasn’t a super-fan. I didn’t own every album. Even now, I wouldn’t be able to even name them. But I had something, some kind of connection and utter admiration. Whether you like her or not; whether you think her drug problem was a selfish act and that her death was nothing more than inevitable, you can’t deny the fact that her voice was like no other. And once she became ‘The Voice’, she had no option but to live up to the expectations forced upon her.

This pressure was all too obvious.

“It was too much to live up to, to much to be. And I wanted out.” Whitney Houston – 2009

Last night I watched Oprah Winfrey’s 2009 interview with a very calm, composed Whitney Houston. Before this, I didn’t know much about her marriage to Bobby Brown or her drug use, apart from the fact that both were tumultuous and destructive. What I discovered was that when you strip away the fame, the money, that label of ‘The Voice’, you had a woman who had been emotionally ravaged by abuse. A woman who had no option but to hide that abuse and however it made her feel.

Forced to paint on an ‘I’m fine, everything’s fine, we’re fine!’ face on every hour of every day is crippling. I’m sure many of you identify with that. Whitney Houston admitted too late that her marriage was falling apart. What had been light drug use, or ‘partying’, became heavier and heavier. Whilst many speculate that this was something she did simply because she could, because she could afford to without care for the consequences, it doesn’t take a genius to see that it was really a desperate attempt to seek some form of escape.

“I was trying to hide the pain.”

Yes, it’s difficult to empathise with someone who, materially at least, has everything they could ever possibly want in the world, who has travelled the world, who can up and leave and live like they don’t have a care in the world. It’s difficult to have sympathy for a woman who smokes weed and cocaine all day whilst bringing up her daughter. It’s difficult to understand why someone gifted with such unimaginable talent could throw all that away and put so much to waste. I understand that.

But nor can I comprehend how I would feel trying to prove to a world that I was happily married to a man, an alcoholic who routinely abused me, who cut my face out of framed photographs, who smashed plates in anger and who spat in my face as my daughter looked on.

I can’t judge Whitney Houston’s lifestyle, the decisions she made or the drugs she was prescribed or not prescribed. Neither should you, or anyone else. What is most important to remember is that beyond the singer, the diva, the voice, Whitney was a loved and loving daughter, mother and friend – just like anyone else.

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