The Daily Zeitgeist - Icon #18 - Whitney Houston: The Voice

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

In this episode, Jack and Miles are joined by comedian Pallavi Gunalan to talk about the only person to turn 'The Star-Spangled Banner' into a star-spangled banger: Whitney Houston! They'll explore her musical upbringing, meteoric rise to fame, similarly meteoric fall and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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representing my family, you know, my brand, my city. I was representing all taqueros, not only of like, you know, the U.S., but of Mexico and beyond. All the Taquitos of the world. Listen to Against All Odds on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where wherever you get your podcast. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this spin-off episode of Dernelie's ICAX. Which we're calling the iconograph. My name is Jack O'Brien, one of the founders ofcrack.com, and I'm joined, as always,

by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray. Hey, I hope we're talking about cocaine today on some level. Cocaine. Everything has to do with cocaine. Keeps coming back to cocaine. I've noticed that the icons, they have little ruse. You know? Like we didn't intentionally do

the grays and leprechauns right next to each other But it just like happened Yeah And now we're doing two people Who had some Some scarface montage shit going on Where a rise and fall

And then the fall It involves cocaine Well at least this person had a lot of talent Oh my God Just wearing But did Whitney Houston Never wear a hat At her wedding?

Do you know? I think she had a headpiece on it her wedding. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I guess everybody has a headpiece on, but I remember photos of her wedding, her having something specifically, like, not just the bridal thing. Miles, in our third seat, a hilarious

stand-up comedian, writer, actor, improviser. One of your favorite guests, one of our favorite guests. You can see her at her monthly shows, second screens comedy, facial recognition comedy. It's polonium, Pala Vigoonale! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! I just want to part with somebody.

Ooh, look is my rain. I see that range I want to feel that from a burning building That was a reference to you burning my house done That's right I just want to poison somebody Yeah

Come on now, let's go Somebody named Miles Yeah we can confirm headpiece wedding Headpiece wedding Yeah yeah Yep I remember that picture You want to be iconic

To Bobby Brown All right So for people who are new to this particular format instead of looking at the Zichai's through current events on Monday mornings

we're looking events we're looking at the Zikeyes to powerful pop cultural infinity stones that are icons we use these they're not Horrockses Miles I don't know what it fucking means

are different all right rings of power yeah that's different miles we use these icons to create meaning to close every single middle school dance for the entire decade of the 90s

with a little boom and I. Mm-hmm. And I. And we use them to learn that some voices are so powerful, they can create the modern equivalent of the dancing manias of the middle ages. Houston, we have an icon this week we're talking about Whitney Houston. Whitney.

Whitney, it's an incadescent talent, a complicated level. and one of the most ill-fated relationships this side of Sid and Nancy and Curtin Courtney. Rare artist who my parents were obsessed with and I was fucking with as well.

Yeah. Who didn't fuck with Whitney? Literally nobody. Yeah. Some people as well get to. You know there were some like arms crossed racists who are like, who does she think she is singing all those notes?

Yeah, but then she sang the national anthem and they were like, well, this is the best rendition we ever heard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she was, the people who really didn't fuck with her were a lot of people in the black community who were like, she is tailor made designed for racist white people. Like Clive is like designed this person. Oh, Clive Davis. Yeah, Clive Davis.

Like a palatable black person? Yeah. He basically, pop and R&B were distinct entities at this point. And so he was like, we need to like bring those together in some way, but everybody's so scared. The white people are so scared. Maybe reverse Elvis. De-segregating the genre. Yes.

Yes, exactly. A reverse Elvis is a great way of putting it. Maybe the highest heights of fame in my lifetime of anyone that we've talked about so far. And then much like Michael Jackson and Prince wouldn't survive the insane. heights of that fame. All three of them entered the 80s, which was a decade of like very conservative politics and just like open white supremacy so prevalent that in the early 80s, MTV's unofficial slash official policy was to not play videos of black artists. And despite that, they achieved a level of fame that was like, I don't, superhuman, like it made them feel

eternal and then that killed them all and all three of them died within seven years of each other, which I hadn't really realized. You're so sad. I know. All of, you know, drug-related. Do you think we'd be where we are politically if they survived? Hard to know. Yeah, hard to know.

It's hard to be racist when like Whitney's up there singing. You know what I mean? That's right. Yeah. You can't deny it. You know, when talent is like that in your face, it's like you're either going to get mad that you like it or you're just going to be like, yeah, I like. Like, what can I do? I like it. But all right, let's take it back to the beginning when all of this would have seemed kind of impossible.

She was born into a family of a very accomplished musicians. Her mother, Sissy Houston, was a gospel singer who then founded the vocal group, the sweet inspirations. They sang back up for Aretha Franklin and Elvis, like they toured with both of them. Wow, I didn't know that. Her mom can be heard on the recordings of Van Morrison's brown-eyed girl, Paul Simon's mother-and-child reunion, and David Bowie's young Americans. Oh, that's right.

That's right. They got that huge group backing vocal group. Dang. Is that how Aretha's like became, wasn't her like, her like godmother or something to? Yeah. I mean, they all like were in and around the same church scene. And so, yeah, she, they were all friends. her cousins were Dion Warwick and D.D. Warwick.

That's nuts. She was born and newer and then moved to East Orange, which just in the something in the water type shit, also the same town that Lauren Hill would come out of like a decade later, which is fucking crazy. Did Lauren Hill come from the church scene as well? Yes. I wonder if there's connections there. too specifically. I remember that. Yeah. That was

a whole movie about it. Yeah. Have you seen the documentary Sister Act too? I don't know if she specifically came from that. I do know that Whitney when she was coming up with the Fuji's, Whitney was immediately like, you need to drop those motherfuckers. Like, straight, like, was one of the first

people who was like, you need to go solo yesterday. And Lauren Hill was like, I'm a Fuji for life. And she was whatever the fuck that means. I don't know what that is, girl, but you better put out your own album. And then Wyclef produced one of my favorite Whitney songs, Your Love is My Love or My Love is Your Love, which so all comes full circle.

Yeah, also Jersey. Jersey, really doing it. Her musical training began when she was a preteen and would just, you know, belt out gospel music in the church. and there are clips from that time that are pretty fucking crazy. This is her as like a 12-year-old, 13-year-old, just out in front of...

Just leading the choir. The entire congregation, just like... All right, that's... You get the... But just incredible... I'm, like, actually tearing up. Like, we lost Whitney, all. I can't.

I know. It really is. We haven't even gotten to the horrible part yet. I know. I'm literally... I don't know what's happening, but I'm going to cry the whole episode. That's fine.

It does feel, yeah, feels earned. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As a teenager, she sang backup up for artists like Shaka Khan, Lou Rawls, but mainly she provided backup vocals for her mom's nightclub act, and she had to be, like, tricked into actually going out.

She was very, like, nervous. And it's actually, my dad went and, like, saw her live, uh, in the 80s and was like she seemed like really nervous. Like I've never seen somebody who's like got such an amazing voice, seemed so nervous. And that was like I think she wasn't like naturally like she wasn't in it for the like being on stage being the center of attention.

She was just like had God speaking through her voice, you know? Right. But yeah. So she was so nervous about going on stage alone that Sissy faked being sick at the last second or in order to force Whitney to like front the show. and that's like she started being discovered once she started, you know, fronting her mom's show. Um,

but yeah, she really like, it is just worth stopping down to think about like what that must have been like to be like someone who does, who suffers from stage fright and is not like a natural performer. And you just happen to have the best, the best voice of your entire like generation. Yeah.

And like be one of the most beautiful. people on the planet. Like, she's also a, like, front, like a cover model for 17 magazine, like, at this time. Yeah. But it, it does, like, kind of put her drug use in some perspective also, like, because, you know, if you don't love to perform and you have to do it all the time and there's all these people counting on you, the drug use, like, I think my, the version I had in my head was that she, like once she married Bobby Brown

that was like when things started going off the rails for her but like she was doing cocaine at like 14 her brother tried heroin for the first time when he was 10 um I think people generally assume that she was you know

that Bobby Brown did all the spoiling but like we I we never knew a version of her that wasn't at least like recreationally doing drugs which yeah It's just, again, like, amazing that she was able to do what she did when she was, like, coming from where she was coming from. And, like, in a world where, like, there's so much working against her and into a world where it was just, like, structurally and overtly racist. Yeah.

And so, like, the irony, too, to be, have such an insane natural ability. Yeah. And, like, but, and somehow that's still not enough to give you the confidence to perform. form. It's just a very, it's very, uh, she said she would close her eye, like, she would sing and close her eyes just to be like, just her in the music and not like, you know, separate from the context of being in front of a massive crowd. You would never know from like the performer she became. No, I know. That's the thing. Like, think about the fucking Super Bowl. Like, think about her going out and singing the Star Spangled banner. Like, the whole world is watching. And she is a person who,

like naturally is scared of like performance and like being this on center stage and she sang and like fucking murdered the star spungal banner at the Super Bowl. I wish someone showed me that because I used to get like stage fright when I would have little like trumpet recitals or something for an instrument I played. And I like to the point I would get like crazy nosebleeds from stress and my parents like oh my God. You're just playing a song for like 90 seconds in front of people. And I'm like, what if I mess?

Oh, whatever. Like to know, it's like, look at this person. This person has an infinite more, infinitely more talent than you do. And they're scared shitless through this. Well, I think so often, I think so often, like the people who are famous, like, have a need to be famous. And, like, then also they have talent, like, more talent than the other people with a need to be famous. Sure. And with her, it was just, like, such overwhelming talent.

And, like, she didn't really have that need necessarily. but the talent was just so overwhelming. Like I said, she, in addition to having the best voice of her generation, was like one of the most beautiful people of her generation became a professional model when she was 16, became 17 magazines, first black models when she was 18, and was offered the role of Denise on the Cosby Show. Wow.

But turned it down to pursue her music career. Hell yeah. She's so talented that she was just like casually shedding sliding door moments that would have robbed us of Zoe Kravitz. Right. Also, the Cosby Show debuted in 1984. Her first album didn't come out until 85. So she was like, killing it and acting. I would love to, but I'm sorry.

I'm going to be extremely famous like a year before she realized. What a way to bet on yourself too. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they wanted her for five years. I'm sure the contract was fucking terrible.

Yeah. You know, Bill Cosby's general. Sure, she signed a better contract with a music label. Yeah. So Clive Davis likes to say that he discovered her when she was 19. But, you know, there's a 2018 documentary that makes it clear that there were like multiple labels competing to land her. And she just ultimately went with Clive Davis, which was smart. And her national TV debut was on the Merv Griffin show where she performed home from the WIS.

but just sidebar on Clive Davis for some reason I just thought he was this like a musician that like had you know like Quincy Jones or you know like he came at it from musicianship he's just like a guy who went to NYU on an academic scholarship and like Harvard law and was really smart

and then basically like had a good sense of what audiences were going to want to hear like he right one of the first people he signed was Janice Joplin and he was like that song take another little piece of my heart. He was like, what if we gave this like seven, what if we like looped the chorus seven times at the end? And so he just like took a, you know, demo of that song and edited it and like made it into this massive hit. But he was basically an audience surrogate. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, because that's why he was like signed earth, wind and fire. Yeah. He signed so many like Chicago, Bruce Springsteen were all. they were all in Columbia, I think. So yeah. One of those, kind of like Rick Rubin or it's like,

I don't know how to play an instrument. Yeah, I don't know shit. I kind of just like like stuff and I'll just kind of speak for my own taste and maybe that works. Yeah. He got in trouble for like a payola scheme and got fired from Columbia and started Arista and it was named after an honor society he belonged to in high school.

What a dork. That's what that's what Arista is. All right. Straight a student. fucking nerd So he really worked like they spent a year making her first album

It was a massive hit sold 25 million copies worldwide And spawned three Billboard Hot 100 Number 1 singles Topped the Billboard 200 for 14 weeks And then she dropped A couple years later she dropped Her second album which gave us

I want to dance with somebody But every single that she dropped from her first album through, I think her third album went to number one, which is the record for... Every single track. Seven in a row. She's still the only artist

to have seven consecutive U.S. number one singles. Wow. A fucking God. The BGs had it before at five. And they were just doing like, and then you got somebody who's like, I don't need falsetto. Yeah, yeah.

Right. Yeah, they talk about octaves. and like how Mariah actually has the highest range where it's like five different octaves and Whitney's three, but she just like, it's completely smooth between each one. Like she doesn't,

it's just, yeah, she can access all of them in one smooth slide. Real quick, I do want to just talk about I want to dance with somebody, which people at the time, classic wedding banger.

It's now I think seen as one of her best songs, one of the best songs of the 80s. At the time, people were like, it's actually too similar to how will I know. So it's like, if you ever had a, or seen American Psycho

where he's like all serious about Genesis? Genesis. Yeah, yeah. Like, he like, he's like, in this one, Phil Collins is exploring new.

Like people were, I don't know what the fuck they were on, but they were like, I want to dance with somebody who loves me is not exploring, not taking any chances. The songwriters have simply come up with a clever anagram of their original hit.

And it's just like, full, shut the fuck up. I mean, this is, this was the same shit they were saying about Motown too. They were also being like, Motown songs all sound the same. Wait to those people discover the movie franchises that we just kept milking to death.

Right. Yeah, exactly. And also, they went on to make those films. They're, like, I've read a critical analysis of like, um,

I think it's Scott Fitzgerald who is, like novelists who essentially were just, trying and retrying to write like the same novel over and over again and then like finally nailed it and people were like yeah i don't know i guess i do kind of like the great gatsby it's like well let's allow the same grace with this pop song right which i do just want to play whitney's vocal track um without the backing on uh i want to dance with somebody still enough time to figure out how to chase my blues away insane I've gone to right up till now it's the light of day and when the night falls Yeah

Wow how is this not like This feels like something that would be in like a movie trailer Pretty soon It needs to be right Slowed down Acapella Whitney Yeah damn that was I don't think I was so hard The Whitney laws you guys

It's time to do it now I'm losing it I think I was too busy studying or something and I didn't it was 2012 the loss of Whitney it would have been to me it's

it's a lot yeah and yeah I want to dance with somebody was number four out of the seven straight number ones they went saving all my love for you in 85 how will I know 86 greatest love of all 86

greatest love of all like that that shit needs to be you know at the end of the NCAA tournament where they do that like montage of the whole tournament? Yeah, of the whole tournament but it's not greatest love of all.

Every time they do that, I'm like, you guys are fucking up so hard. It needs to be greatest love of all. Then I want to dance with somebody. Then didn't we almost have it all? Then so emotional. Then where do broken hearts go, geez.

Oh my God. What a run. What a run. To the previous point about her drug use being earlier than I realized her 1986 debut tour, the greatest love tour, was referred to as the greatest drug tour

by band members due to the prevalence of cocaine on the tour, which a touring musician, they're aware of drug use. So for them to be like, that's a lot of cocaine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would have been like de facto drug use, but the fact that they're like,

I actually want to call this out. This is kind of the most drugs of that scene. Reagan being like, that's too many dicks sucked. That's crazy. Right. This person sucks a lot of dicks. But yeah. I'm in the 80s mindset.

I don't know. Barbara, you really suck a lot of dick. To Barbara, but yeah, it is just we allow certain artists to have drug periods. And, you know, like Keith Richard and the Beatles.

It's like glamorized because they're white guys. And then when it's like people of color, the culture interprets it as weakness. And so she had to like keep it hidden, which probably doesn't help you with your ability to like deal with the problem. You know?

Yeah. And there's also throughout there's like a system. Yeah, there's also a lot of religious shame around it. Like they're just constantly like praying to be delivered from it. Which made me think of this. young quote, what you resist not only persist, but it will grow in size. And so if you are purely, if you're purely just like pushing back on something and not just accepting this part of yourself,

like, it's, I think it's hard to, hard to get past that. Also, I mean, I feel like in line with that is like the queer stuff and like hiding that with the church, um, having to present yourself a certain way. I feel like that's probably all tied in. Yeah, for sure. Right. And like, what parts that if you're able to accept yourself could have maybe been like her saving grace on some level, right?

It's like, but if everything's like so secret and repressed, it just can only fuel the like running from it. Yeah. Born a few decades later. Yeah, it really does. Like this feels like a person who could have done so much better in our era.

Right. She was like born when Billy Ilish was born or something. They'd be like, not the way. But at the same time, do we have our era without Whitney Houston coming before, you know?

No, right, exactly. Yeah. Could you imagine what music would have sounded like if Whitney Houston didn't hit the scene to like 2013? Right.

It would have been a dark time. Speaking to the previous point about, you know, people calling her Whitey Houston, that was like one of the nicknames that they gave her, the Reverend Al Sharpton, I think, was somebody who really pushed back on Clive Davis's presentation of her.

So there's this one night, the 1988 Soul Train Music Awards, where we've talked before about this, like that movie Saturday Night, where like it's the first episode of Saturday Night Live is the premise, but they just jam everything that happened in the first three seasons of Saturday Night Live. to like a single night. And they're like, and then, and then Bill Murray punched Chevy Chase. I was like, Bill Murray wasn't on the show until.

He did. He did. He did. For time. Sometimes history is like that. For time. Bill Murray punching him. And so Whitney Houston has a couple of these moments.

Like we've talked before about like Tupac shot a cop and then played dear mama for his friends for the first time in like a 20 minute span. Yeah, that's crazy. So with Whitney, we've got one really good one and this is a bad one. So she was booed at the Soul Train Music Awards when her name was read during the best music video category because she was like, see, for,

she was nominated for I want to dance with somebody, but lost to Janet Jackson. Control. And she later explained that she got a lot of flack for singing too white and people, she kind of brushed it off at the time, but a lot of people say that they don't think she recovered from it. One of her band members said,

I don't think she ever recovered from it. It was one of those boxes that was checked that when she ultimately perished, it was because of those boxes. That very same night, she meets Bobby Brown, who people have pointed out at the time was like the epitome of a virile,

street credible black man. And so people have like connected those two things. Is that a quote from a book? I think that was from, Didn't we almost have it all? That's an old white man describing Obama. Viral street street what was I voted for him. A virile young black man was street credibility.

Is that what it was street credit? The epitome of a virile street credible black man. Wow. Harvard description of Bobby Brown. Do you think so you think that they might be connected and that she might have been vulnerable and that was a win? That that's the thing. Syrian, didn't we almost have it all, the biography. But it is, it's just interesting.

She might have just been vulnerable generally because of the booing. And then she meets this guy who like kind of nags her. This is the story of their meeting. I kept hitting Bobby in the back of the head by accident. I leaned over and said, Bobby, I'm so sorry. And he turned around and looked at me and said, yeah, well, just don't let it happen again. And I was like, oh, this guy doesn't like me. Well, I always get curious when somebody doesn't like me.

No, no, no. And now can I get them to like me? The second person who's ever not liked me. Right. Yeah. Jesus. With his little Gumby haircut too, probably at that time. Yeah.

Bad news. Bad news. Oh, my God. I mean, like, I don't want to underestimate what a bad. Like, when asked about his drug use, someone said, were you taking drugs every day? And he said, hell yeah, every day. A lot every day.

shit that usually kills motherfuckers and I keep rocking. Oh my God. So, uh, he said that when like at the time or like years like, was that a recent? After. After the fact. Yeah, yeah. That's probably a little mythologizing, I'd imagine. But who knows?

Oh, for sure. But also I, yeah. I don't know. I'm not saying you did do drugs. Somebody who is like at a point where, you know, at this stage of her career, her best friend Robin, uh, best friend, in quotes. Robin, like, always talks about how she would say, like, where we're going,

cocaine can't come. Like, we need to, like, cut this shit out. And she just, like, wasn't able to. And then she married fucking Bobby Brown, who, um, not, not the best of influences. Do you guys remember the 1980, no, 1990 VMAs when he was performing? Yeah, I was one year old. The Ghostbusters two theme and a vial of cocaine fell out of his pocket. What?

On the stage. And then he like kind of does like a dance move and like scoops it up. But it's like very clearly. I need to see that. Yeah, you're jumping a little, you're a little too skips. Oh. Yeah. Oh, there you go.

There he goes. He grabbed it off the stage. The same shit happened to me at a dance recital in 1990 where I had a slap bracelet on. Yeah. And it was too loose. And we were doing a song called Pac-Man Fever. and my bracelet kept going off. There's a video of me at the recital.

I kept going down to pick it up. And the dance is like, stop picking up the fucking bracelet. You're five? I was, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, six, six at the time. Yeah, yeah. Anyway.

Were you doing the same dance? Yeah, yeah, and I was on cocaine. The cocaine stayed in your pocket. That one was fine. Yeah, yeah, I'm not an amateur. You know, I mean, you tape that to your thigh. But so similar to the speculation that surrounds Dolly Parton, Whitney has a lifelong best friend from or had a lifelong best friend from the time she was a teenager and working they met like working as camp counselors and a wait a minute is dolly gay and I didn't know there's just speculation because she has a lifelong best friend who she like travels with and spends a lot of time with but there's no never saw her husband until he died right so like people people speculated about it but

It's a gale and Oprah situation. Right. But there is, so after Whitney passed, her best friend, Robin Crawford, came out and was like, yeah, we briefly had a physical, you know, relationship. And then she was like, we truly, like, there's a scene where she, Whitney, like, signs her first contract with Arista Records and then comes home. goes to Crawford's house, hands her a Bible, and says they had to quit having sex because it would make our journey even more difficult. But then as soon as she quit, Coochie, but not cocaine? Yeah. Wow.

One's easier to do in a bathroom. Yeah. But she did hire her as her assistant. They moved into an apartment together in Woodbridge, New Jersey, basically lived as a couple. but according to Crawford did they stop yeah it was platonic even though they like slept in the same bed sometimes and like

had cats together oh my god the fucking lesbian yearning y'all it hit so hard it is truly like it is really like really sad and anything yeah the yearning

and then she got mad when Robin Crawford was asked about it by reporters because reporters were like all over the shit and we're like, ooh, like, why is she was, why are they always together? That is so funny because generally in history, everybody's like, that's her roommate that she kisses on the mouth.

But like in this time, they somehow caught it. Yeah, yeah. But I think it was actually, it was something where they were, her side was like trying to cover it up. And then it became obvious that like they were protesting too much

maybe. And so that's a bunch of radio DJs like started talking some shit. But she would like get met. Like one time somebody asked Crawford like do you guys have sexual relations? And she was like, that's none of your business. And Whitney like got really mad because she was like,

you can't say it's not of our bill. You have to say. Right. No. Like categorical denial. You have to say pussy gross. I only love big old dicks with the balls and stuff. Whitney would then with like straight up Whitney would

go, like in her denials, would be like, look, I don't care if you're marrying a woman, man, or dog, like, you know, that whole thing. I don't care if you're black, white, purple. I care about the dog. Exactly. It's purple after black and white. You're like, and then there is a story that her father, because her family was like very both concerned about, you know, this relationship, sinking her career. And also there was like some jealousy about her having more access to Whitney than they did. They like really did not like Robin. And there was a story alleging that her father concocted a

Tanya Harding coded scheme to pay someone $6,000 to break her kneecaps. Oh my God. Wait, how was that found out? How legit is that story? It was in the National Enquirer. But, um, okay. You have to cite sources. in that case.

That's why we asked. Actually, it was reported that Robin Crawford was Batboy. Yeah, so I don't know how true that one is. She is a true, like, tabloid quit. Like, we talked on the Dolly episode about her being, like,

constantly on the front page of the tabloids. And that was also true. Whitney Houston, just constant fascination with her. She eventually, Robin eventually quit 20 years after they first met after a botched recording session with George Michael led to Bobby and Whitney lashing out at her.

Oh, that's gonna be so fucking painful to watch like your soulmate get married to a man who's like such a piece of shit. It was like a ratty dude. He's like nagging her. Oh, man. So on the subject of Bobby, she had a number of relationships

with famous men, a tour at a fair with Jermaine Jackson when she was first in the music industry because he produced some of her early songs. Dated. My dad met Jermaine Jackson at an airport. I don't know if they had a court affair, but. It is fake hairline.

It is painted hairline rub off on your dad. Absolutely not. My dad's bald as hell. He's like, hey, what are you using? Because your shit is fully painted off. Apparently she was more interested. said and Eddie Murphy than she was Bobby Brown

but Eddie Murphy was playing hard to get but then did the ultimate fuck boy move and called her on her wedding day and was like are you sure you want to marry Bobby Brown? Eddie! Eddie? You fucking

Eddie. Why you treat her like animal? Eddie? That's Whitney. That's a goddess. Oh my God. Look at that hairline. Germain Jackson's Rock.

That is not. He looked like black malcolm. He does. He looks like the evil queen from Snow White. If Carlos Boozer was Maleficent. That is crazy. Did he get his style? His hairdresser is a Lego. No, he just puts a volleyball in front of his face and then just goes.

Yeah. That's crazy. I'm Anna Navarro and on my new podcast, Leap with Anna Navarro. I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest. issues happening in your community and around the world. Because I know deep down inside right now, we are all cursing and asking what the bleep is going on. I'm talking to people like Julie K. Brown, who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein in 2018. These victims have been let down time and time again for decades and decades by local law enforcement, by federal law enforcement,

by administration after administration. The Justice Department through, I think we counted four presidential administrations, failed these victims. Listen to Bleep with Anna Navarro as part of the My Cultura podcast network. Available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, gorgeous, it's Lala Kent. Host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up Cubsid Sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley. Live on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes.

But over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate. I've been full on oversharing with fans, family, and former frenemies like Tom Schwartz. I had a little bone to pick with Schwarzy when he came on the pod. You don't feel bad that you told me I was a bootleg housewife? I almost flipped a pizza in your lap. Oh my God, I literally forgot about that until just now. Sorry, I don't want to blame alcohol.

I got to blame that one on the alcohol. This is about laughing and learning when life just keeps on life in. because I make mistakes so that you guys don't have to. We're growing, we're thriving, and yes, sometimes we're barely surviving, but we do it all with love. It's unruly, it's unruly, it's unafraid, it's Untraditionally Lala. Listen to Untraditionally Lala on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Iris Palmer, and my new podcast is called Against All Od, and that's exactly what the show is about, doing whatever it takes to be thoughts. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories.

about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Eva Langoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account, and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month, and we all could not afford. Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month? I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready.

to see a whole new side of me. Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I actually drop better when I'm high. It heightens my senses, calms me down. If anything, I'm more careful.

Honestly, it just helps me focus. That's probably what the driver who killed a four-year-old told himself. And now, he's in prison. You see, no matter what you tell yourself, if you feel different, you drive different. So if you're high, just don't drive. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. She did not date Robert De Niro, even though he creeped on her like a wealthy Travis Bickle.

He kept sending her flowers. I don't mean a bunch of flowers. It was a room full of flowers. And that was for a few months, Robert DeNiro kept sending Whitney Houston flowers. and then her mom Rejecting me Her mom called him up And said

Stop making a fool out of yourself And when Sissy used to Stop it, you stop it And that was the end of that That's amazing Fuck yeah He's always I mean De Niro's always had a thing

For Black women That is the rumor Yeah I mean like his ex-wife's like Yeah Like he's married Black women before yeah Yeah Yeah

Anyways The Bobby Brown Relationship Was a fucking nightmare he would get jealous of her success. There are like reports from later on where like, you know, they spent a lot of time doing drugs together and like he would like cut her head out of pictures that were like on the wall of their house and shit.

Like really just dark shit. There's domestic violence calls. I'm sorry. If you're anywhere in the vicinity of Winnie Houston to think that you could be in the realm of her talent is insane. Like you have to be so divorced from reality. to like even be jealous and not just bowing down to that shit. I know,

I'm sure that powered it too because I've like, but before Whitney was popping, Bobby had his moment and then suddenly it's like, you're with somebody who's way bigger, way talented than you and I don't know. Right, but he just remembers that one, that one run when they were about like on the same level, maybe,

kind of. That's just because she hadn't been heard yet. That's right. 2005, he started in his own reality show being Bobby Brown, which was a, a fucking nightmare. The less said about that one, the better. But it was, you know, like, deep in her, you know, drug use and their collective drug use. And it was just a very, you know,

disillusioning look for people who, you know, viewed her as this, like, goddess. But I do just want to take it back to the height of her fame. So the other amazing kind of one day that I just wanted to draw attention to where like a bunch of different shit is happening. So her 1991 Super Bowl performance of the Star Spangled Banner was so popular. It was sold as a CD single and a VHS tape back when people would pay money for VHS tapes that were less than five minutes long. Do you remember those VHS tapes with like the giant wheel inside? Yeah.

The wheel inside. Yeah. That's so crazy. Like if I got one of those tapes, you knew as a kid you're like, bro, this shit ain't going to be even. 30 minutes. I remember that was a thing that gave away the duration of a tape

so much as a kid. Like the wheel is how big inside? Yeah. This one says, Whitney Houston, the star spangled banner running time, four minutes,

30 seconds. That's, and worth every penny. Sold well. Her musical director, Ricky Minor, made the choice to change the song from its

three, four time signature to four for giving her a little bit more time to like, you know, explore, the song. And so he sent the track to her.

She didn't get around to hearing it. She said, I was busy doing a screen test for a film with Kevin Costner. So arrives at the studio in Miami having like just come from her chemistry test with Kevin Costner. He plays the track for her. She listens once through,

nodded briefly, said she was ready, walked into the booth and sang the version that we hear heard at the Super Bowl. in one tape. That's insane. So I didn't realize. Sorry, so she didn't sing it live or? Nobody does.

I didn't realize that. Nobody ever sings it live. Wait, so Fergie didn't sing it live. When did she sing it loud? She's singing it at the NBA All-Star game. At the NBA L-Star game. The Super Bowl is like too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Imagine if she, imagine if Fergie did tape that and she was like, yeah, that's exactly what I want. Right. Like, you sure? Also, like, doing research for this, people were talking about, like, how she treated her voice, because she would, like, lose her voice a lot towards the end of her career. And, like, one of the producers who had, like, worked with her and Celine Dion was like, Celine Dion will not speak for 24 hours before a recording session.

Whitney would, like, come in chain smoking and hit the studio after a full day on set, just take off her jacket and just fucking deliver the greatest performance you've ever. fucking seen. That's insane. Yes. I mean, also just goes to show how like the levels to it too or like Sleen Dion. Credit to her also one of the VH1 divas. Oh, geez.

Oh yeah. She's like, I have to keep this thing like that where Whitney's such a natural. She's like, I don't know. I fit it into my day. Right. But also like it's like people who don't get hangovers. Like they need to get hangovers to control themselves. Exactly.

Yes. Like we need them to learn lessons. Yeah. That's right. You've never reached your limits. No. No, it's actually amazing. No. I just keep going and going. And the energizer

bunny of degeneracy. Yeah. Will you rip the filter off that cigarette and hand it to me? Thank you. Yeah, the other thing that really fucked with her voice was she would sprinkle cocaine on joints and that was like her drug of choice. No, that was literally her drug

of choice. Are you serious? Smoking raw cocaine on yeah, so inhale like, yeah. This is my toxic trait. I'm like, me, I could fix you. I know. When they released the,

that version of the National Anthem, it became the first recording of the National Anthem to ever chart peaking at 40 which, that shit sounds like it was made for like the people like a hundred years ago. I can't believe that wasn't like a top

song like back in the day. And then after 9-11, it peaked at number six on the Hot 100 chart. The first top 10 finish for the Star Spangled Banner. But this brings us to the bodyguard. This is her first major movie role.

That was her first? That was her first. Yeah. She could act if she wanted to if she had decided to she could have been fucking Denise in the Cosby show. She was just like, yeah, I don't know. It's like how we always say like Beyonce, it's good that she doesn't wrap so that she leaves

something for the rap girlies. Right. I mean, she was only in five movies or some shit. Like, like waiting to exhale, the preacher's wife, Cinderella, and smart oracle. We don't get enough of Whitney. We definitely did not. So the script was written by Lawrence Kasden back in 1975 before writing Raiders

of the Lost Ark. He wrote the script for the bodyguard. Which one should I put Whitney in? Just sitting on that? Yeah. Yeah. Inspired by Yojimbo. He wanted Steve McQuiv.

to star with Diana Ross, and it, like, stuck around all the way up until Costner. It was speculated as early as 1986 that Whitney would star in it, but at that time, the titular bodyguard would have been played by Clint Eastwood, even though he's 33 years older than her. Ew. And she was, like, very, she was like, I can't do, like, I can't star in a movie in my first acting role. And Kevin Costner, like, literally spent a year.

persuading her. He was like, you're, we're not making this movie without you. If you want to take a year to think about it, we're going to stop the development and production process for a year until you're ready to move forward. Kevin Koznor wrote so hard for her. Like, I rewatch his speech at her funeral sometimes. It's wild. He was obsessed with her. I love it. He also had the idea of, like, I forget what, oh, where. So, Originally the movie ended with her singing, where do lonely hearts go? And he had the idea of using the Dali Parton song,

I will always love you. And he also had the idea to start it off acapella with just her voice. Kevin Costner? Wow. Kevin. I know. The Clive Owen of that team. What the fuck?

David Foster's like, this guy really came through. But also studios obviously needed convincing since they, wanted more bankable familiar film stars in the role and were worried that an interracial romance would cause controversy because of course they were um all right right i want i want to play a game with you guys because i remember i will always love you being a monster hit at the time uh huh do you want to play a game oh are we going to do the thing where we wait to see when it comes in no no i i just want to see like i think i was i might have been fucked up but all right i i think i remember the

movie being like popular. So I'm going to tell you the movies that came out that year were like in the top 10, you had Aladdin, Batman Returns, a few good men, Wayne's World were all in the top 10. 10 through 20 you have like scent of a woman, white men can't jump. 20 through 30 was my cousin Vinnie. In my mind, I thought it was in the like my cousin Vinny, you know, stratosphere. Like it was like a hit, but it wasn't like, you know, a massive hit. Where do you guys think the bodyguard landed in there?

I thought it was top 10 because of the song too. I just feel like I think the one thing I do remember was the song was bigger than I remember hearing the song and then it wasn't until like 95. I actually watched it. Like I was like 11 or something. I didn't know anybody had watched it. I thought it was just the song in the video. Of all the movies you mentioned, I had seen most of those like as they had come out. Same.

Same. So I'm guessing. It was probably vastly underrated and underappreciated at the time. It was number two behind Aladdin. No! It was fucking, it made $411 million worldwide. Okay, what, it came out, 92? I was eight, man.

What the fuck did I know? No, I'm just saying, but that's how I had it too. You were like, this romantic movie isn't doing it for me. I'm eight. I'm eight. I like Aladdin. But you know, Alibaba had the 40 thieves. And I'm like, okay, Robin Williams.

And then on the soundtrack, I remember the song being a hit. I don't really remember the album. So playing the same game, it came out in late 92. I think most of its sales were 93. That was the same year as like, you know, Garth Brooks was all over the charts, but so was Michael Jackson Dangerous, Nirvana, Mariah dropped a music box,

which is her best-selling album all the all time. Where do you think it landed for that year in terms of album sales? single but the album. That had to be number one. Was that all, was that whole album, Whitney? That whole album was Whitney, yeah. Didn't have like I'm every woman on there too?

Like, I remember my aunt having that album. I think that that had that album I felt like was everywhere. So I'll, I feel like that's maybe like two. I feel like maybe only Garth Brooks. Because like he was like huge. Garth Brooks and Michael Jackson. No, wait. You said, okay.

So, uh, three. I knew, I knew it was popular. I didn't know that the soundtrack was the best selling album. of the 90s. The best-selling album of the entire 90s was the fucking bodyguard soundtrack. What? But it's the best-selling soundtrack of all time.

It's the best-selling album by a woman of all time. And it was the best-selling album of the 90s. It beat the chronic, it beat Nevermind. That's so crazy. As she was laying down the tracks. Wow, shout out Kevin Kozner. I know. How about that?

Motherfugger knew a hit. As she was laying down the track, her mom turned to David Foster and said, you know you're witnessing greatness, right? Which I just love that. That's amazing. Yeah, when you put it up there with everything, it's the number three most selling album of all time. Of all time.

It's Thriller at number one, ACDC's back in black, then the bodyguard, then Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon, the Eagles greatest hits. Okay, but then if you factor in like the racism, I bet it would be like, it'd be like Michael Jackson bodycard soundtrack and then all the rest. Like doing research for this, I really started to think like something happened to with like I will always love you.

There is a woman in the UK who spent a week in jail in 1993 because she couldn't stop playing. I will always love you at full volume. 20 years later in American Airlines flight made an emergency landing because a woman refused to stop singing Whitney Houston's. I will always love you as we covered in the done. Dolly episodes, Saddam Hussein used a cover of I Will Always Love You for one of his elections. Oh, that's right. He's like in the little hole. He's like, and die.

Just laying down at a hole. Yeah. It actually, it works in that language as well. But yeah, it almost feels like a weird, like dancing hysteria style thing where the whole world was just like, like, it's a great. So I'm not saying it was like as crazy. the dancing hysteria, but like just everybody fucking loved that song everywhere all at once. Yeah.

So much. Including Osama bin Laden. So there's someone named Kola Booth who was basically like K-O-L-A-B-O-O-F, who is a poet who was held hostage kind of by Osama bin Laden and eventually, like had a very weird psychological relationship with him, but it started with him, like sexually assaulting her. But she wrote a memoir of her time with him,

and she was like, he loved Whitney Houston so much. He spoke of like someday spending vast amounts of money to go to America to try to arrange a meeting with her and talked about arranging to have Bobby Brown killed. Oh, man. Imagine that alternative reality.

Pam, instead of 9-11? Right. Yeah, he got snuffed. Wait a minute. Are you telling me Osama bin Laden sexually assaulted somebody? Cancel Osama bin Laden. I know. I think this is the first time hearing of something.

I used to be on board. What the, wow. I was a huge fan until I heard he sexually assaulted somebody. You believe that? He wanted his, he was making, he was ideating around the fact that Bobby could be taken out and they got Bobby could get touch. He said that he had a paramount desire for Whitney Houston and although he

claimed music was evil, he spoke of someday spending vast amounts of money to go to America and try to arrange a meeting with the superstar. It didn't seem impossible to me is what she said. He said he wanted to give Whitney Houston a mansion that he owned in a suburb

of Khartoum. He explained to me that to possess Whitney he would be willing to break his color rule and make her one of his wives. of all the honors bestowed on her. His color rule? I know. His color rule.

Color. What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Racism, I think. Yeah. And then Whitney Houston's name was the one that would be mentioned constantly.

How beautiful she was. What a nice smile she has. How truly Islamic she is. But it's just brainwashed by American culture and by her husband Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed as if it were normal to have women's husbands killed. Holy shit. Wait, what? He's like, in Shalai, I find her. Yeah, what did he see in her?

They're like, I saw that wedding photo. Yes. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, maybe it was the headdress. The thing. That's such a weird. That's like a straight dude looking at a lesbian who's like, I can make her straight. Exactly.

Exactly. She's so Islamic, dude. This is like how I think all cats are Muslim. I'm like, I'm projecting. They are, but still. Oh, yeah. He speaks a lot about his love of Western culture, including an obsession with Whitney Houston and marijuana.

Osama, you're sending us conflicting messages because like death to us but also you love it. But not to Whitney, but not to the voice. When it comes to me in the U.S., it's complicated, it feels like is it's a love-hate relationship. Like truly, like the fact that he was that

obsessed with somebody who like stood in front of the world as America was like coming out of the closet as an imperialist war machine in the Middle East like during Operation Gulf Storm and like sang the Star Spangled Banner for that to be the one for him is interesting.

It does feel like there's a part of him that both hated and was attracted to Western things. It was back when that American propaganda was hit. I want to do like a family feud style survey of like dictators and like who their crushes are. Right. I mean, already you got so. Saddam Hussein was a fan, Osama bin Laden, who knows who else.

I know, right? That is wild. Yeah, Saddam was a massive fan. And, like, she sang the national anthem. Like, that was like a rallying cry for a bunch of people being like, yeah. I love my. Obviously, death to America, but like, I know a voice when I hear one baby. Right.

I guess everybody was paying attention. So, yeah, like massively, massively popular around the world. Like, one of the reasons that. One of the reasons that I don't think we remember the bodyguard being as big a hit is like those are, that's the global earnings like around the world. I don't think it was number two in just the US. My family fucking loved it and they're Indian. Like my family was like super down with Whitney. Yeah.

So this is kind of brings us to her demise, which, you know, she her drug use. Let's just end the episode. We can. I can do her death in the notebook. I can't keep crying. Like 1993, her drug use like starts really escalating. She later told Oprah Winfrey, she started lacing her joints with cocaine, confess that she would spend her days and nights getting high with Bobby watching TV,

not getting out of her pajamas for seven months while Brown lost control. He would smash things, break things, cutting my head off a picture. By the 1996 release of the Preachers, wife with Denzel Washington. She was doing drugs every day. I think that is the movie. No, it's waiting to exhale. She had a like OD scare on the side of waiting to exhale.

In 1999, she canceled five concerts. 2000. She was caught with half an ounce of marijuana at a Hawaiian airport, which was a big deal at the time. Why are celebrities always caught with drugs in Hawaii? Wasn't that Bruno Mars to? What's going on over there? I don't know.

They got drugs there. Are they always bringing them with them? I think so. Yeah. It's always at the airport. I think so. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like you can't be like, hey, I got some of this cocaine. I'm bringing back from Hawaii. So it's definitely. My best thing. That shit on you. Yeah.

That Maui, wawi cocaine. March 2000, she was supposed to sing somewhere over the rainbow at the Oscars, but at rehearsals, she appeared disoriented,

couldn't remember the words. And Bobby Brown was sitting in the front row drunk with a coat over his head allegedly OD'd on the set of waiting to exhale, but it was kept out of public view. And then she had this interview with Diane Sawyer in which she famously said crack is whack while being pressed about drug use. It was like her point was not like, I don't do drugs. She was like, I wouldn't smoke crack. I'm rich. It's kind of like her approach. But Diane Sawyer is like just

doing this shit-eating, like, nasty face the whole time. It's like, what was this? Well, yeah, and I remember this was also like, it always just became the memeification of Whitney around this era, too, especially around the time that the Bravo show came out. Because then, like, Maya Rudolph kind of had her own version of doing Whitney. That was sort of like this, who-hoo, who-hoo, kind of like the version of Whitney.

Yeah. Sort of like the drug-addled version. At the time, I was like, this is the funniest shit I've ever seen. I'm like, that's funny. And then when you actually understand the real depth of it all, this was all just an arrow and we're like, I don't know, someone's having problems, that's a character bit on SNL now.

Jay Leno joked that the anthrax scare is so big that Whitney Houston will no longer open envelopes containing white powder. So that's the shit version of it. I forgot about anthrax. That was wild. That was a time, huh? Thracs. Yeah.

Iconic. I mean, amateurs. Why would they use Sandthrax, idiots. So she died in 2012 the day before the Grammys. So she had gone nine months earlier. She had done a stint in rehab. And then she came a week early to L.A.

before this Clive Davis party, which happens annually the day before the Grammys. And she was like, she was going to be honored at the party. but she was just there was all sorts of like reports from that week of her like she was I think dating Ray J

at the time and What the fuck? Have you guys seen this theory that Ray J is involved in everything? Yeah. I'm starting to believe it. I didn't even fucking realize. Yeah. What the fuck? Oh my God. Yeah. So they were like dating there is a conspiracy theory that like he's somehow involved

that Shug Knight has like been talking about recently. but I mean Ray J is only 45 years old that's insane yeah he was trying to say it was like Ray J was there

when it happened yeah when they were trying to be like he was giving her the drugs oh yeah Ray J was is only 45 years old and he's been involved in thousands of years of history that's crazy yeah

I want you look into him I'm just saying he's like a vampire a vampire a vampire um speaking of vampire chaka con a friend and fellow

recovering addict spoke out about the vampires of the ugly-ass music business lambasting all those who had allowed her only nine months out of rehab to arrive in L.A. a week before Clive Davis's party, even like more, like to that point. So she was found dead in the hotel where Clive Davis's party was happening that night. And like right before the party was happening. Wait, like not at the party, but in her room, right? In her room. So she was getting ready for the party in the bathtub.

her assistant went out to run some errands and came back and found her in the bathtub. As word spread, they announced her death while her body was still upstairs in her room. And then Clive Davis and like the people running the party were like,

Whitney wouldn't have wanted the party to stop. And so they just like kept partying downstairs as the corner like waited for the crowd to clear out to take. He ultimately didn't take the body out until 1 a.m. Wait, so the,

they find out at the party that she's passed away. Yes. Clive Davis is the one saying or like the people at the party are like, we got to keep this going. Yeah, we got to, Whitney wouldn't have wanted us to. My body is like heating up. I am furious.

Like that I didn't know that. That's so fucking crazy. Yeah. Same building. What a fucking, yeah. Such a fuck you to someone like that. I remember at the Grammys,

they were talking about how sex. they were. Yeah. Well, so they like scrambled a new opening with an L.L. CoolJ. Prayer and Jennifer Hudson covered, I will always love you at the Grammys, but it was like literally the day before. And then there's lots of like conspiracy theories over the years, including that she was murdered by high powered East Coast drug dealers, trying to collect a $1.5 million debt. And last year, Shug Knight implied that Ray J. was involved with her death because they were like dating at the time. he said Houston and singer Ray J had a strong bond and he used to buy her drugs.

She just used the term that Brandy's little brother bringing me drugs and doing drugs with me. Knight said Brandy's little brother trying to kiss me and do drugs with me. Next thing you know, she's dead. Oh my God. I just realized like that's the fairy godmother's. Oh my God.

Yeah. Her and Brandy like have a really. Yeah. But it is kind of the measure of an icon that like no matter how straightforward the death people will invent a conspiracy theory to like try to make it not straightforward to like help them deal with the

weirdness of the fact that like yeah exactly um so they just keep going and say that Elvis faked his own death even though it's like no he's on so many Marilyn Monroe there were so many things too about like what happened there that's a lot of speculation it is yeah especially when it's so untimely like that yeah the conspiracy theories will fly

Yeah. But I mean, truly, like, some of the highest highs ever, like the, like, the highest highs ever. Yeah. Like, nobody's selling more albums than you. Nobody's selling more albums, truly. No, nobody in their acting debut is starring in a movie that is like so much more popular than it has any right being. Like that, people didn't like like that.

Like, I guess people liked it, but it wasn't like critically. a success in any way. It was just massively, massively popular because fucking everybody loved Whitney Houston. I mean, it just also, it sucks like just even the thing about how, you know, like MTV wasn't playing stuff that was too black.

Yeah. And then you had to black people, she wasn't black enough. Yeah. And truly just in this weird liminal space of trying to figure it out. And then eventually her talent overcomes all of that.

But like, what is such a hard road to get to where you're at when truly like you're just on talent alone. If you can just look at how talented she is, there's no reason to be like, ah, I don't, not messing with this. Her brother, he was another person who was always like,

people were like, could you say something to her? And he's like, well, I'm not going to talk to her about her personal life. But she does respect me with regards to my professional advice. And so I'll tell her that she's hurting her career with whatever she's doing, you know. But her brother, like, was drafted in the NBA. and was also like everybody thought was one of the best singers in NBA history too. No, like just like at the time, everyone was like, this guy's going to be a famous singer. And then like he's not the talented one in the family.

Right. Fucking crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. What a talent machine her parents. I know, right?

Jesus Christ. In New Jersey. Shout out Jersey. Yeah. Not orange. Well, Paul, V. Thank you so much. Sorry for making you cry.

No. We can end. like we can't end like I need to know something about her legacy something bad happening to bobby brown and clive davis i need to we have to i can't i'm not ready to up my meds yet okay so we got to figure out how to end this on a better note than all of the sadness give me something i mean i think one thing too i just think about the thing with the relationship with robin too which is like kind of wow that so many of her songs are also like these gay anthems too You know what I mean?

Just from all of the two. There's, I think they're just like, I think the thing about Whitney is that there's even like, I remember being a kid and not liking, like, singer stuff. I didn't like people sing.

I liked rapping and like shit like that as a kid. And being there was, like I remember when that bodyguard soundtrack came out. I was so fucking blown away that it was just like a thing I tried singing to like at full voice. I have a very specific memory of. trying to hit and not like and being like, oh, that shit is so hard. I remember being so put off by singing after that.

Like it really, for the longest time, I have this memory. I was like, I can't sing like Whitney Houston. And thinking that was the standard at like fucking 90, nine years old. She was praised as a master of malisma, which is that thing,

uh, where your voice like a beautiful name for a girl. It's a series of different notes in a single syllable. Christine Aguilera loves that. I personally think it's dangerous and disapproves of malism. I say one note per syllable. Like hot cross buns. You're a recorder-style singer.

She was so influential that they had to the pop idol judges, like Pete Waterman and Simon Cowell had to ban aspiring stars from attempting to sing Whitney Houston songs on the show. That's amazing. You can't sing Whitney Houston songs. You know that kicked off. So, like, it's like anything like, oh my God, are they going about to sing fucking I will, oh, they're doing it. We have to ban this.

That is so funny. Like it where improv shows are like, no food suggestions when I ask for a one word suggestion. No fucking food because everybody says food because I always come in, you're hungry. Yeah. Anyways. What a legacy. That's how influential she was. They had to ban her songs because nobody could do it.

Nobody could do it. Yeah. The voice. I mean, like, what a nickname. You know, like you were called the voice for a reason. Yeah. It's like people trying to play. like Michael Jordan.

I was like, you just look foolish. And your tongue is out mouth for some reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are not Michael. And I took that personally. Apalvee, where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff? I'll be sobbing in my room, just playing Whitney on repeat, being the most patriotic person I've ever been, listening to that version of the Stangled banner.

I'll be cursing. The sweatsuit she's wearing is so great, too. And the white headband, too. The white headband. I can picture it so vivid. Like without even like I'm like, I know that headband. She's so beautiful. She deserved much better.

Oh my God. She's like so. Okay. Lighter than air and just like fucking booming. Like singing. That was the thing. Like people were like, how can she sing like that? And she's this little.

What a wonder that we got to be in the same world as her at the same time. Right. Yeah. Beautiful. Um, you can find me everywhere at Paula Viginolin. P-A-L-A-V-I-G-L-N-A-N-A-L-N. and I run two shows,

facial recognition comedy at the Comedy Store and Second Screens Comedy at the Elysian Monthly. I will be at Netflix as a joke. May 4th at 10 p.m. Hotel Cafe, the second room, buy your tickets for Netflix as a joke. There's not that many available, so get your ass in there. Let's get it going. I feel like Netflix is being too mean to it, so, you know?

It's fine, Jack. They're doing okay. Yeah. just don't you're not a joke should we try it do it works day he's that guy's a joke daily Zygize is a joke

daily Zygdice fucking sucks yeah you fucking what the fuck oh what the what the day Lee Zikels this podcast fucking stinks um

all right Miles anything I'm here every day there you go all right I'll be right back with my

my day Miles oh my god and if I will be gone for a little bit in April. It's not that Pahlavi did anything to me. It's because I have to go see family. clicking a lighter on and off right now. Not every day. Oh, no. I'll be right back with the notebook.

I'm Anna Navarro and on my new podcast, Bleep with Anna Navarro. I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest issues happening in your community and around the world. Because I know deep down inside right now, we are all cursing and asking what the bleep is going on. I'm talking to people like Julie K. Brown, who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein in 2018. These victims have been let down time and time again for decades and decades by local law enforcement, by federal law enforcement, by administration after administration. The Justice Department through, I think we counted four presidential administrations, failed these victims. Listen to Bleep with Anna Navarro as part of the My Cultura podcast network. Available on the

IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, gorgeous, it's Lala Kent. Host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up cups at sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate. I've been full-on-on oversharing with fans, family, and former frenemies like Tom Schwartz. I had a little bone to pick with Schwartzie when he came on the pod. You don't feel bad that you told me I was a bootleg housewife? I almost flipped a pizza in your lap.

Oh my God, I literally forgot about that until just now. Sorry, I don't want to blame alcohol. I gotta blame that one on the alcohol. This is about laughing and learning when life just keeps on life in. Because I make mistakes so that you guys don't have to. We're growing, we're thriving, and yes, sometimes we're barely surviving. but we do it all with love. It's unruly, it's unafraid,

it's untraditionally la la la. Listen to Untraditionally Lala on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Iris Palmer and my new podcast is called Against All Od and that's exactly what the show is about, doing whatever it takes to be the odds. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories

about defying expectations, overcoming barriers and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Eva Langoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account, and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month, and we all could not afford. Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month?

I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me. Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the MyCultura podcast network. available on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I actually drop better when I'm high. It heightens my senses, calms me down. If anything, I'm more careful.

Honestly, it just helps me focus. That's probably what the driver who killed a four-year-old told himself. And now he's in prison. You see, no matter what you tell yourself, if you feel different, you drive different. So if you're high, just don't drive. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. All right. That was our unexpectedly sad Whitney Houston iconograph.

Thank you to Paula B. Good on. Thank you to J.M. McNabb for research. This is our unexpectedly fun Whitney Houston. No, no, no, notebook, dunk. Something that came up with Miles and I, since we recorded that episode, is the question of when we have these cases where someone is like a second generation superstar talent, like in an industry that seems to be pretty meritocratic.

You know, we don't just like politely act like you have a nice voice and pretend to like your songs because you had successful parents. This happens in the NBA, a guy who used to be an all-star Carlos Boozer. His kid is about to be one of the first picks in one of the best drafts in like 10 years. Not because his old man like talked to someone. He's actually good at basketball. And yeah, it's the old Star Wars versus the last Jedi argument, otherwise known as nature versus nurture. Like how do they become so good? Like do good voices with NBA, I think everybody just assumes, oh, they like are are both sick athletes and, like, athleticism just runs, you know,

genetically in people's families. With voices, I don't know. Like, do good voices run in families? Miles and I were talking about this. I can't remember if it was a recorded conversation or not. It might have been in one of the episodes last week or two weeks ago. But essentially, is it that she has the singing gene, like do golden pipes?

paths from generation to generation, or is there something learned, something culturally you're getting in that family more than others? And in both cases, actually, I tend to lean toward the ladder more than they have like special congenital golden voices or like special like basketball playing ability. Like, yes, Carlos Boozer's kid is tall, but there's lots of people who are tall. There are lots of people with good voices. I feel like there's probably a larger share of the story that has to do with, you know, them knowing, like something cultural and something about their parents knowing what it takes and like what this industry is like and passing it on to their kids. Another thought that occurred to me with regards to singing in particular, it made me think

of this study that found that newborn babies within days of birth cry in the accent of their parents' native language. Each language has its own sort of cry that works with, you know, how we emphasize words and the melody of our language. And according to this ABC News article, researchers discovered that, quote, babies cry with the same prosody or melody used in their native language by the second day of life because essentially they're listening to the melodies of the language coming in through the walls of the womb. It goes on to say as newborns, they do recognize their mother's voices and they ignore the dog barking because they've been hearing the dog barking three months before they were born. And I just, I feel like it's

interesting to think about the importance of a mother's voice. like you come from inside there. You form from like a grain of sand less than a foot away from her voice box. So your mother's voice is the first sound you encounter. It might be the first sensation that you encounter. Your consciousness grows out of your mother's voice in a sense. And, you know, like I can't hear my mom's accent.

I can hear in other people with the exact same accent. I can hear their accent, but I can't hear it because my mother's accent is, you know, it's like the this is water thing where the fish is swimming by and says, how's the water today? And the other fish says, what is water? Like, that is the closest to water that I have is like my mother's voice. And while Whitney was in the womb, her mom was recording background vocals on the drifters on Broadway.

You know, they say that the bond of a mother and a child is built from like early singing. And I just wonder how much it helps. How much of a difference does it make for the voice you're hearing in all of those transactions, all of those like very foundational, like philosophically, ontologically, massively important relations to your mother's voice? how much it might matter for the voice that you're being formed out of. Like, it's got to be helpful for that not to be some bullshit regular mom voice. But like one of the great singers of her generation.

Shout out to all the regular moms out there. I don't mean to be mean. But anyways, just another way that it could be not just, wow, the way that her voice box is shaped is also passed on to you. but like something more going on there. Pahlavi mentioned the conspiracy theory about Ray J being some cross between the devil in the Rolling Stone Symp for the Devil and Forrest Gump,

just like being everywhere. I first heard this from Vince Staples when he was promoting his debut album. Obviously we all live in the wake of the Ray J. sex tape, as I call it. Some people know it is the Kim Kardashian sex tape. But Vince Staples argues he's one of the most influential figures in the last 20 years of pop culture.

He, of course, mentions the Whitney Houston detail. He mentions that he drove Kanye crazy. This is before, I think this was like 2015, so it was like years before Kanye went actually crazy, but when that was harder to do. And while I always took Kanye, like Kanye talked a lot of shit about Ray J. and I always took that as like, well, yeah, I mean, he starred in the famed Ray J sex tape with his current wife at the time.

There's, you know, a reason that Kanye would feel a certain way. There's also a reason to believe Ray J. wasn't the easiest person to have as your current wife's ex. I came across this anecdote during the research for this where Whitney is avoiding Bobby. They're both out in L.A. he comes out to LA because he's like trying to get, I think, money or like payments from her. And she's trying to avoid him.

And Bobby's dating and staying with best-selling author, Corrine Stefan's. I don't know if that's exactly how you pronounce it, but Superhead is another name for her. She wrote a bunch of best-selling books. And Ray J. calls and says, and I quote, is Bob Stomberhead? still staying with you, Bobby Brown. And she said, yeah, he's right here. And Ray said, tell him I fucked both of his chicks, you and now his wife. Just called, called to say that.

That's, that's Ray J. So, yeah, I don't know. He had the VH1 reality dating show for the love of Ray J, which is an early precursor to like 90% of what's on TV now. Once slapped the shit out of Fabulous in a way that Vince Stables said might have really damaged Fabulous's career. It's not exactly George H.W. Bush being in Dallas when Kennedy was shot, but he is kind of everywhere. So anyways, Pallavi brought it up. I thought I'd just run you through a couple of the key points.

And finally, we mentioned that she was almost on the Cosby show and that she was one of 17 magazine's first black models. And she was the first black model to be on the cover of 17 as a teenager, which is a pretty, amazing accomplishment for that being like not what we know her for. I mean, we knew she was beautiful and it probably didn't hurt her singing career. But I think it's different enough from having the best voice of your entire generation that we can induct her into the Hedy Lamar Hall of Fame for celebrities with random accomplishments and fields you didn't know they fucked with. She, of course, joins Todd Field, the maker of the film Tar, the piano player from Eyes Wide Shut, and also the inventor of Big League Chew. So that's his unexpected accomplishment. In the Marilyn Monroe episode, we came across Reginald Denny, who was a famous actor who spent his money in spare time on toy planes and bought a factory that made toy planes that went on to contribute.

to the creation of drones and drone warfare. It's named for Hetty Lamar, this Hall of Fame that I just invented. Hetty Lamar, an actress from the 30s and 40s, who's so famous I've heard of her, which no small thing for films of that era. And she's also a major reason we have Wi-Fi during World War II. She helped invent the frequency switching technology

that would give us Wi-Fi. It's a crazy story. It's not like she's just, she spent the time in between shots on her, like, shooting films, just like inventing things. It's a crazy story here. I'm going to read from her Wikipedia. During the late 1930s, Lamar attended arms deals with her then husband, arms dealer Fritz Mandel, possibly to improve his chances of making a sale. From the meetings, she learned that navies needed a way to guide a torpedo as it raced through the water. When later discussing this with a new friend, composer and pianist, George Antheil,

her idea to prevent jamming by frequency hopping met Antheil's previous work in music. In that earlier work, he had attempted synchronizing note hopping in the avant-garde piece written as a score for a film that involved multiple synchronized player pianos. So she's just like pooling these ideas from like different things. She's like this crazy polymath. and she ends up creating this way to steer torpedoes that ends up being how we encode Wi-Fi signals. So yeah, she's going to get that shit named after her,

this Hall of Fame that I just made up, the Hetty Lamar Hall of Fame. So welcome Whitney Houston to the Hetty Lamar Hall of Fame for celebrities who have crazy accomplishments in fields you didn't know they fucked with. You, of course, join this year's entrant Al Pacino, who while primarily being famous for being Al Pacino, he is also famous for, and this is true, being one of the 25 oldest men in recordist history to have ever fathered a child.

I just thought he was, you know, old. This was just brought up on the podcast, Blank Check. So shout out to Blank Check for letting me know. But yeah, he's on the official record, one of the 25 oldest men. All right. That's going to do it for the Whitney Houston notebook dump. Next week we're back with another iconograph, another iconic woman who died at almost exactly the same age as Whitney. Maybe the most iconic artist of the 20th century.

Coming up, it's Frida Kahlo with MoFri Passick. It's a wild ride. More daily Zika is coming later today. and we'll talk to you all then. It's Financial Literacy Month and the podcast, Eating While Broke, is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future.

This month, hear from top streamer, Zoe Spencer and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum-Pierre as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. There's an economic component to communities thriving. If there's not enough money

and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they failed. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching the latest season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta,

you already know there's a lot to break down. Gorsha accusing Kelly of sleeping with a merry man. They holding Kay Michelle back from fighting Drew. Pinky has financial issues. On the podcast, Reality with the King, I, Carlos King, recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows, including the Real House Wise Friends,

The drama, the alliances, and the T, everybody's talking about. To hear this and more, listen to Reality with the King on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Anna Navarro, and on my new podcast, Bleep with Anna Navarro, I'm talking to the people closest to the biggest issues happening in your community and around the world. Because I know deep down inside right now, we are all cursing and asking what the bleep is going on. Every week I'm breaking down the biggest issues happening in our communities and around the world. I'm talking to people like Julie K. Brown, who broke the explosive story on Jeffrey Epstein in 2018. The Justice Department threw. We counted four presidential administrations failed these victims. Listen to Bleep with Anna Navarro on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Hi, I'm Iris Palmer, host of the Against All Odds podcast. Every week, I'm sitting down with exceptional people. who had broken barriers even when the odds were stacked against them. Like chef Victor Villa of Vias Tacos. You know the Taquero from the Bad Bunny halftime show? It was great. It was a big moment. It was special. And I felt like I was really representing my family, you know, my brand, my city.

I was representing all taqueros, not only of like, you know, the U.S., but of Mexico and beyond. All the Taquitos of the world. Listen to Against All Odds on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.