DISGRACELAND - Whitney Houston: Cracks in the Mirror, Crack on the Mirror, and One Fateful Choice

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

Whitney Houston was The Voice. A stunning beauty. An early MTV star and leading actress. But when she passed away in a hotel suite bath, the music industry gala downstairs that she was supposed to attend went on without her. How did it all come to this? The drugs and her husband Bobby Brown weren’t answers, just ways to avoid the question: what was the private tragedy of Whitney Houston?For a full list of contributors, visit disgracelandpod.comThis episode was originally published on November 12, 2019.To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership.Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTERFollow Jake and DISGRACELAND:InstagramYouTubeX (formerly Twitter) Facebook Fan GroupTikTok To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Whitney Houston, America's sweetheart, are insane. Among other outrageous anecdotes from her roller coaster life and career, Whitney Houston smoked crack in the presence of her five-year-old, upstaged F-16 fighter jets with her powerful voice and free-based her way off of the charts.

She was a natural talent. Her voice, like her image, represented both pilots. power and grace. But behind that image, the truth was another story entirely. Whitney Houston, despite her chart-topping, glass ceiling, shattering success, lived a not-so's secret, secret life of self-destruction, pining for true love, unable to practice self-love, and making great music along the way. That music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't great music.

That was a preset loop from my Melotron called MeloRoyle Exit, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to the look by Roxette. And why would I play you that specific slice of Swedish look-sharp cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on April 13, 1989. And that was the day Whitney Houston met Bobby Brown, marking a pivot point in the career of a squeaky clean pop songstress, but a point that would mark the beginning of a long descent into drugs, heartache, and destruction. On this episode, Royal Exits, Look Sharp Cheese, Cocaine, A Broken Heart, and Whitney Houston.

I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgrace land. Kardashian turned heads on the red carpet. Whitney Houston did not. Tom Hanks borrowed a serving tray from a waiter and loaded it with martinis for the guests at his table. Whitney Houston was not one of them. Jane Fonda gave Richard Branson an award on stage. Whitney Houston missed it. Sean Diddy Combs and Pitbull reminisced about their days partying with Whitney Houston.

Tony Bennett was in fine form on stage that night, and Whitney Houston was not. Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus had enough class not to show, and Neil Young didn't even know why he was there, and Whitney Houston didn't know anything at all. Diana Ross was clueless, just like Whitney Houston, and upstairs on the fourth floor, Ray J banged on the door to the suite furiously, demanding to be let in, but Whitney Houston wasn't seeing anyone. Downstairs, the Royal Music Industry Court was held together by host of Clive Davis, the iconic record executive who had signed, among others, Janice Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, and Whitney Houston herself. Clive proclaimed, the show must go on. His annual pre-Grammy Awards gala at the Beverly Hilton had been months in the making.

Whitney Houston, along with a packed room of other A-list Hollywood celebs, were tapped to attend. And the performances were set. The sponsors had already forked over a barrel of cash and the peasant. People wanted a show. But Whitney Houston didn't want anything anymore. And she definitely wouldn't be talking to the press. The reporter from VH1 spotted an assistant to Whitney Houston who'd helped set up an interview. She was outside of the hotel a few yards from the red carpet talking nervously into her cell phone,

doing her best to stay out of the fray of the flash and poplarazzi's cameras. And the reporter button holder ignored the fact that she was on the phone in mid-conversation and blurted out, where's Whitney? She's late. What about my interview? And the assistant let her hand with her phone drop to her side. She stood silent, blank-faced, and took a beat. And then she said,

Whitney can't make it. She's dead. Ed Winter, the L.A. County Coroner, had seen some weird shit before. After all, he was on the scene after Michael Jackson died. He'd never forget it. He was surreal. The most recognizable star on the planet dead and devoid of any pomp or vanity. Michael was almost unrecognizable.

Absent his wig and with his thinned up, and scalp, his tattooed hairline, tattooed eyebrows and tattooed borders of his eyelids, and the pink liner tattooed around his mouth, Jacko. Normally, death didn't rattle the corner. It was his job. But Michael Jackson's dead body had him shook in 2009. His altered appearance deteriorating physicality and cosmetic tattoos, it was a shocking transformation. It was clear that the Michael Jackson, the world knew it died a long time ago.

This was something else. This was a new death, twice over. This was death squared. The puncture wounds in his arms and the small pharmacy surrounding him in his rented Beverly Hills home administered to him by a doctor feel good on retainer. It was a messed up death scene, even for an L.A. County coroner, and that was saying something. But it was nothing compared to the Whitney Houston shit he was seeing now, not even three years later. The coroner cut his way through the crush of arriving celebrities, fans and paparazzi at Beverly Hilton,

and made his way to suite 434 where Whitney Houston was staying prior to the gala event downstairs that she had planned to attend. While Clive Davis and his celebrity guests yucked it up downstairs and celebrated their favorite pop art for themselves. Upstairs, the coroner took in the scene. Trays of uneaten food, open bottles of champagne on the table, a portrait of Marilyn Monroe hanging on the wall, and another portrait of Marlon Brando on the opposite wall,

A bit on the nose for the Beverly Hilton, but what did the coroner know? This business was death, not decorating. So back to the destruction. On the counter in the bathroom, a Coke spoon and a plethora of prescription drug bottles, Xanax for anxiety and flexible to relax. The irony of the reveling partiers downstairs, living it up while one of the expected attendees laid dead just four stories up was too rich to ignore.

Regardless, the coroner went about his business, ignoring the chaos around him. Friends and family nervous, scared, crying, demanding to know what happened as if they who were staying with Whitney were incapable of admitting what everyone in the world seemed to know that Whitney Houston was a strung out mess whose days had been numbered. It would be weeks before he'd issue a formal toxicology or autopsy report, but on the site the coroner called it.

Whitney, whose angelic voice and looks had once propelled her to more consecutive number one songs in The Beatles, lost track of herself medication, stuffed herself with prescription muscle relaxers, had a couple too many drinks, blasted a spoonful of cocaine up her nose, slipped into a bath that was too hot, somehow banged her head, passed out,

and drowned in six inches of water. The National Inquirer's headline from the most recent issue lying on the floor of Whitney's bathroom, said it all. Whitney collapses, strung out, and broke it's worse than anyone thought. The F-16s couldn't compete with the brink. performance they had to follow.

Normally, the F-16 flyover at any event is the showstopper, but not at Super Bowl 25 in 1991. Not after Whitney Houston, whose performance of the Star-Spangled Banner during the time of America's first Gulf War, a time of fervent patriotism, a moment where the words of our national anthem carried particular weight, Whitney Houston delivered them effortlessly on the back

of the infamously difficult to sing melody. There were no extraneous notes. there was no reaching, no hiding high notes under low octaves. It was more like what the F-16s were trying to achieve. Power, grace, defying nature. Whitney Houston was unnatural. Her voice seemed physiologically designed to deliver soaring anthemic pop melodies

to the widest audience possible. Clive Davis recognized this the first time he heard her sing. At that little shithole in the village had a show set up by Jerry Griffith. Harris is head of A&R. Jerry was put on to Whitney by her mom, Sissy, who, when she saw Clive, was quick to remind him that they'd met years earlier

while they were both working with Aretha Franklin. Whitney called Aretha Aunt Rhee. And like her most famous aunt, Whitney's mom, Sissy, was a gospel and soul singer as well. Clive missed his chance with her. He'd got to her too late. She'd already been too established as the powerhouse diva that she was,

the Queen of Soul, too black, Too strong. America already knew her as one thing and wasn't going to buy the pop makeover. Same thing went for Whitney's cousin, Dionne Warwick, Sissy's niece and another former employer. By the time Clive showed up, Dion had too much of that burt-backer-ax sheen on her.

She was too well-known a commodity, and frankly, not young or exciting enough for the pop market. But 19-year-old Whitney Houston? Sure. She'd been born into the drug-torn streets of Newark, New Jersey, but her parents were in the business and moved the family out to suburban Orange. The drugs followed from Newark and Whitney,

who was being raised in the church with that gospel energy and guidance, managed to keep her nose clean for the most part. In 1983, Clive Davis was one of the power brokers in the music industry. He'd taken control of Columbia Records when Whitney was still in diapers, and by 83 it consolidated his power at Arista Records. He was in the market for a fresh talent that he could make into a star. Whitney Houston was perfect. Already a signed model when she'd appeared in vogue,

and on the cover of 17 magazine, she was gorgeous, tall, thin, caramel skin with a dazzling, wholesome smile. And despite the rough and tumble streets she came up on, her looks screamed suburban girl next door. Whitney Houston looked like the all-American girl you'd root for in the movies, the cheerleader you'd try talking to in study hall,

but who barely ever talked back. She'd smiled politely, but then go about her business. putting you squarely back where you started on the pay-no-mind list, which of course made you want her even more. She was both approachable yet unattainable, a perfect natural combination for potential pop stardom

provided she had talent. Which of course she did. Church singing is where she cut her teeth and her mom, Sissy, due to her own experience in the music industry, was driven to make sure her daughter's talent was recognized in a way that her own talent was not. Thus, the showcase with the one and only class,

Davis sitting at a beer stained low top sipping a parriere with lime in his tinted shades and bespoke suit none of it intimidated Whitney she went on stage and did what came natural to her blew minds with that powerful voice in hers clive was convinced immediately he went to work signing her to the first of a series of record deals with arista that would eventually climax in a contract worth a hundred million dollars in 2001 this first deal though also gave clive creative control and access to Whitney with its key person clause, effectively terminating her contract with Arista if Davis ever left the label, and allowing Clive to take Whitney with him wherever you went. Clive Davis was Whitney Houston's rabbi, and Clive Davis wasn't going to fuck this up.

Life gives you cards. The trick is how you play them. And Whitney Houston was the fourth ace in Clive's hand. He could stack it next to the three others he'd already accumulated to that point. Experience, power, envision. Whitney was ace number four. Pure young unfuck-upable talent. He set up gathering material. Hit songwriters like Michael Masser were brought in. Ace material was chosen,

material that would suit Whitney's uniquely powerful voice. Material she could not only impress with but used to pierce listeners emotionally. A roster of producers, including Germain Jackson, were brought in to make sure Clive's vision was brought to life. A vision of a black pop princess who white America could fall in love. with. Whitney, her looks and her voice were perfect, so the material had to be perfect, as did the

production. Nothing too R&B sounding, which in the mid-80s meant too black sounding. No George Clinton or James Brown or even Atlantic era Aretha. It needed to sound pop, which is to say it needed to sound happy, big, anthemic, positive. Nothing blue unless it was strictly anchored in the pop ballad tradition. Shades of Cole Porter, yes, Lou Rawls, hell no. The result was her self-titled debut, Whitney Houston. Just like in a good round of poker, Clive Davis's winning hands started quiet, but didn't take long to draw a huge kitty. After the first single, you give good love, antied up in early 1985, the album spent over a year, slow burning its way to number one in the back of five more singles. Whitney winning a Grammy and setting a historic

record as the first female solo artist to hold the number one selling album of the year, breaking that particular glass ceiling in 1986. Clive Davis' hand had paid off. Whitney was everywhere, in constant rotation on MTV as part of the network's first wave of massive-selling black artists, alongside Michael Jackson and Prince. She appeared on magazine covers from Ebony to People, and her hit, Saving All of My Love for You and the Greatest Love of All could be heard on radio stations and a middle school gymnasium dances all over the country.

By 1986, just three years after Clive Davis first saw her perform, Whitney Houston was a record-breaking star, a star with a pristine image known simply as the voice. An image that Bobby Brown didn't give a damn about. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. Whitney Houston, America's sweetheart, slipped a glass crack pipe from her purse. She hid it and passed it to the man beside her. Bobby Brown, her husband.

Whitney waited to exhale, and then the curls of smoke filled the limousine. The orgasmic rush gave Whitney's sweet relief, relief from the depressing come-down from the last hit. Bobby Christina, Whitney and Bobby Brown's five-year-old daughter jumped on the seat's $30,000 earrings jangling from her ears. Whitney was paranoid, and Bobby Brown was irritated. Settle there, Whitney instructed her daughter. Then she hit the pipe again. What are you doing, Mommy?

Whitney hesitated. Mommy and Daddy are doing what drove the darkness, smoking crack in a limo alongside her five-year-old, inhaling secondhand smoke, unable, despite her love for her child to prohibit the child abuse, the cycle of darkness. Freak, smoke, crash, repeat. This cycle shouldn't have been the reality.

She was an international superstar, immensely talented and immensely likable to black and white America alike. Yet here she was, addicted, desperate, and lonely. Despite her family, she was pining. She missed her. Bobby Brown was not her. He was not the oasis Whitney had hoped for. The relationship was complicated to say the least.

The longing. Why did she feel so alone despite the company of her family? Did she miss her? The limo driver disgusted in the front side. seat couldn't help but wonder what it was exactly that Whitney Houston's husband brought to the relationship or as Bobby Brown thought of it, to the party. But whatever influence Bobby had, Whitney Houston chose on our own to make him part of her life. April 13, 1989, Shrine Auditorium, the third annual Soul Train Awards. Bobby Brown was reveling in a successful solo career and performing that

evening. He was nominated for Best Male R&B album. His image was almost all sex, the dangerous kind, too hot to handle, too cold to hold. Bobby leveraged his roots growing up in the Orchard Park projects in Big Bad Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. He brought Hood culture to the mainstream. He was backstage practicing his performance of my prerogative, a song that had gone to number one on Billboard's hot R&B hip-hop chart, a song that was very explicitly about not giving it damn about what other people think. It was pure Bobby Brown.

Bobby Brown with his tight new jack fade, the white silk suit, high-waisted baggy pants pegged at the bottom, a flowy blouse of a shirt open at the collar covering his cut chest and abs that he would soon expose to the audience on stage. Bobby was hyped. He wasn't sure how the night would turn out,

whether he'd win Best Male R&B album or not, but he was sure one thing. Tonight, he was the flyest motherfucker in the building. Whitney Houston was nominated too. for Best Female R&B Single. Whitney had reached the mountaintop. Bobby had been performing since he was in short pants, but he hadn't experienced anything close to the celebrity stress

since scrutiny heaped on Whitney. Bobby's bad boy nature could still be a charming asset for his career, but where Whitney's career was concerned, any perceived misstep or deviation from the official narrative set out by the press was considered a potential death blow. There was simply too much riding on her immense success. James Ingram stood behind a pastel podium with Heather Locklear,

who was wearing a sparkling black dress. She read off the nominees. Vanessa Williams, The Right Stuff, Karen White, Superwoman, Anita Baker giving you the best that I got. After each nominee a music video clip played while the live audience whipped it up. Then, Heather read aloud Whitney Houston's name and her nomination for Where to Broken Hearts Go. The crowd did something unexpected.

They booed, one of the most. popular entertainers on the planet. A rolling wave of booze and jeers silenced Whitney's clip. Somebody in the balcony even yelled, Whiteney. Heather was a pro. She finished her scripted patter as if nothing had happened, opened the envelope. Part of Whitney was relieved.

At least now she wouldn't have to accept the award in front of a hostile crowd. But the rejection from one of the most important black audiences in the music industry rattled Whitney to her core. And it wasn't all that surprising. was a core rattling year. It was the year of not only rejection, but of rumor.

From the first days of working with Clive Davis, Whitney's most trusted companion had been her roommate and best friend Robin Crawford. Robin was from the same hood, tall, broad shoulder to basketball player. She carried herself with authority. She and Bubbly Whitney were inseparable. Even back in the block, people gossiped, but they laughed it off in private. Whitney told Robin that if Robin stuck with,

With her, Whitney would take her all the way around the world, and in just a few years she had. But the tabloids and radio rumor mill exploded. Lazy music journalists smelled blood in the water. Horndog top 40 DJs snickered. Whitney's god-fearing mom, Sissy, prayed it wasn't true. But anyway, you cut it. Robin was clearly the person Whitney trusted the most. She was Whitney's oasis, and now that oasis had been discovered, overrun with flash bulbs, innuendos, and trash.

In 1989, bisexuality or homosexuality for a mainstream pop princess was potentially career suicide. And as such, Whitney was under tremendous pressure. The pressure was intense from the media from her label and from her churchgoing family, who found any whiff of homosexuality to be deeply scandalous? Who was Whitney Houston? With the soul-trained audience booing, claiming she'd sold out her black roots, lost touch was a shill for the white man's music industry, was a secret lesbian.

Her worst fears were being validated in real time. But when it came time to hit the stage to present, when he went out, head held high. She glanced side stage. She could see that signature haircut from across the way, that angled flat top that looked like a new Jack remix of the classic rock and roll pompadour. She was sweating under the spotlight,

but he had already won. He was celebrating. He was a fly, motherfucker. He wore his blackness proudly. He didn't give a fuck what. anyone thought. He was fun. He had the potential to deflect questions about her sexuality, to appease the homophobic fears of her family, publicity team, the critics, and there was something enticing about Whitney, the good girl, getting with the baddest of bad boys. All of this flew through Whitney's mind in an instant, intuitive. She wasn't scheming. After presenting,

she found him backstage. Bobby Brown took her in, head to toe. Dig that swagger. Dig that long-legged American Pie Action, dig that good girl presentation. She reminded Bobby of those nice girls from Newton. The ones as Roxbury friends who bust into the burbs for school told him about, the type of girl who was innocent, pure, on the surface anyway. But Bobby Brown could sense it. Deep down, Whitney Houston played dirty just like him. Whitney Houston's hotel room was littered with Coke spoons, rolling papers, lighters, overflowing ashtrays, beer cans, and junk food bags. What else to do in this god-forsaken hot plate of a city? Phoenix, Arizona, hot as a motherfucker, and twice as boring. Whitney was on the set of waiting to exhale, and she had finally received her latest hookup.

Street price for an ape ball was $80. She was paying $300. She'd better be good. She did a mirror full of lines and zigzagged around her drug den. Then, a familiar knocker. on the door. Whitney's bodyguard, David Roberts, he'd been her body man for years through multiple albums, domestic and international tours, and as of late, multiple movie sets. Though their relationship was strictly professional, David and Whitney's trust did inspire the bodyguard, Whitney's mega-hit breakout as an actress starring opposite Kevin Costner. But David, the real-life bodyguard, had taken issue with her drug use. Whitney put her hand to her mouth, considered not answering the door, felt blood trickling from her nose, another knock, more blood.

She felt lightheaded, wanted to rest her eyes. The knocking wouldn't stop. Whitney's eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she felt herself falling backward, and then she hit the floor. Unlike the stories about her love life, the tabloids looked the other way after Whitney's first major overdose. But in May, 1995,

Whitney's lawyers reviewed the neat pages of bodyguard Dave Roberts' letter in a polished office full of leather-bound books and rich mahogany. Even in this environment, the words before them felt radioactive, threatening to hit all involved, where it really hurt, in the wallet. Like Robin Crawford and most everyone else in their entourage, the bodyguard had reluctantly come to accept the presence of Bobby Brown, who Whitney had married and had a baby with, and who now walked around with in a constant cloud of cocaine smoke. David had seen the carnival of drugs consume the couple and the touring crew.

He kept quiet after the waiting to exhale overdose. But then came the train wreck of Whitney's Asia tour, career-threatening behavior like smoking so much weed right before a show in Singapore that her voice gave out, leaving Whitney on stage, hoarse, whispering her way through soaring ballads before canceling the rest of the show in the next night's performance.

Back home, the bodyguard furiously typed this report. The lawyers reviewed his account of Whitney's growing recklessness in her crew's drug trafficking, patterns, ape balls smuggled internationally in tour members' vaginas and assholes, rendezvouses with regular suppliers in the U.S. It was damning, but Whitney and her family and other business partners had the final say. So it wasn't long before David Roberts received a reply. With no future tour is currently planned, his services would no longer be needed. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Whitney lost her body card. And in a few years after another tour in

1989, she lost her best friend Robin Crawford, who lead the fray on her own accord. Losing Robin gutted Whitney, she tried staving off the loneliness with drugs, aided and abetted by her husband until she couldn't take the chaos any longer, and finally in 2007, Bobby Brown would be gone as well. But unlike with Robin, who clocked eight years of loyal service, even after losing Whitney to Bobby, but finally just found it too painful to stick around and watch the consequences play out. Bobby's departure was Whitney's choice. What began in 1989 as a third rail attraction, an emotional rabbit hole of insecurity and desperation,

a relationship in part designed to help to avoid a personal and public relations apocalypse, finally arrived at its tragic conclusion, with Whitney Houston near broken emotionally and heavily addicted to cocaine and painkillers and alone, painfully missing her dearest friend, her rock, Robin. Whitney thought back on it all, 2012 years later. By this time, even more alone, even more distressed emotionally, and quite possibly even more addicted, intersweet at the Beverly Hilton, readying herself for Clive Davis's pre-Grammy gala that was about to start in the ballroom downstairs. Then she did a line of cocaine.

She locked eyes with the portrait of Marilyn Monroe on the wall. Marilyn, impossible to ignore, exuding glamour and knee-knocking sex appeal that only partly masked the vulnerability. in her big eyes. Vulnerability. It was the opposite of the strength portrayed in the framed Brando print on the other wall. Wild one era.

Perched on his triumph Thunderbird motorcycle, all leather and grease, tough, proto-Ruff trade style, but sexy as fuck, nevertheless. Brando, powerful, strong. That image of him in the moment reminded Whitney of Robin.

Robin, toughest nails, tender when she needed to be, and like Brando, also sexy as fuck. Brando proxied Robin just as Marilyn with her glamour and vulnerability always reminded Whitney of herself. Whitney did another line, closed her eyes tight, banged back a Xanax, sipped warm champagne from a sweaty glass bottle, stared up at Maryland and then over to Brando, and they were both ignoring her, vibing off of the sparks between themselves. It was hot, electric, an electric coil, and out of this world magnetism extending from one iconic superstar

to another, from one wall to the other and surging through the fading iconic star in the suite between them, whose soul was now raging with regret. The Xanax did its thing, and it was heavy. It bore down on the cocaine swimming upstream in her system. Whitney held focus on Marilyn, dipped her head down to her Coke spoon, and did another bump, pulled on the champagne bottle again, kept it in her hand by her side, got out of her chair and stumbled over to the bath she was drying, and it was ready. She dropped her robe, alone, vulnerable, her thoughts drifted.

She wondered what Robin was doing. Whitney turned back to Marilyn and Brando on the walls outside the bathroom. She slurred to Norma Jean. I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Davis, and laughed to herself while slipping into the tub. Brando did not laugh. He was preoccupied, still staring at Marilyn. It was Marilyn in her youth. Five alarms smoke, pure, like Whitney once was.

Brando wanted nothing to do with Whitney. Whitney had her chance that those days were gone. Whitney felt the sharp pain of rejection and then resentment toward Marilyn, toward herself, the sting of lost youth, lost love, where had it all gone, the promise, who was she now, who was she then, what had she lost? Her love, the love of her life. I said, I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Brando.

Brando offered nothing, just sat up there, I fucking Norma Jean. Another swig from the champagne. Hey, I'm talking to you. Whitney's voice approached anger, but it didn't matter. Brando said nothing. She was too tired, too wasted to be truly angry. She mumbled. I said, I'm ready.

I'm ready. Her voice faded off again. There was no one there to answer. Mr. Brando, Mr. Robin, Robin, Miss Robin, Robin, Robin. I'm ready, Robin, I'm here. And then, she wasn't there at all. She'd slipped under the bathwater and off into sweet relief. no more searching for who she was.

Whitney Houston was no more. Downstairs in the chaotic hours after it became known that Whitney Houston had died upstairs, Clive Davis decided that the show must go on. The mood at the show that night was haunted, surreal, but it was the best way to honor Whitney, he said. R&B sirens, Brandy, and Monica weren't so sure, set to perform a medley together that night.

Instead, they declined to sing and stayed seated in the audience out of respect for the tragically past role model lying dead upstairs. If Whitney Houston had Marilyn Monroe to idolize in her sadness, now the next generation had Whitney herself. And today, Robin Crawford lives with her wife and two children is finally ready to speak about her life with Whitney. She's a book coming today, if you're listening to this episode on the day of its drop, November 12, 2019.

And even Bobby Brown has admitted he believes Whitney would still be alive if she and Robin hadn't become estranged. The year after Whitney's death, Clive Davis would himself come out as bisexual. He lives happily with a male partner. Maybe Whitney's tragedy inspired him to stop pretending and to embrace his truth. Or maybe in his 80s, in the 21st century,

he was less worried about the impact this would have on his career than when the same PR move simply wasn't on the table for Whitney 30 years earlier. Learning to love yourself, It's the greatest love of all. Whitney Houston didn't write those words, but she dropped them on us powerfully

with that bomber playing voice of hers and inspired so many of her fans to find strength and love and celebration of their true selves. But Whitney Houston couldn't quite practice that same self-compassion she advocated for the masses. And now she's dead.

And that's a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland. was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it.

And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod.com slash membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at DisgracelandPod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at Disgracelandpod. Rockerola.