whitney houston biography

Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston was an American singer and actress whose first four albums, released between 1985 and 1992, amassed global sales in excess of 86 million copies.

Early Years

Albums and songs, daughter bobbi kristina, documentary, posthumous music, projects, and honors, who was whitney houston.

Whitney Houston released her debut album at age 22 and scored three No. 1 singles. Whitney (1987) delivered four more No. 1s and earned Houston a Grammy, with later albums including I'm Your Baby Tonigh t (1990) and My Love Is Your Love (1998) as well as soundtracks to The Bodyguard (1992) and Waiting to Exhale (1995). With her marriage to singer Bobby Brown in 1992 and ensuing drug use, Houston's career got off track. She eventually made a comeback with 2009's I Look to You and also co-starred in the musical film Sparkle . Houston died from accidental drowning in a hotel on February 11, 2012.

Born on August 9, 1963, in Newark, New Jersey, Houston almost seemed destined from birth to become a singer. Her mother and cousin were both legendary figures in American gospel, soul and pop music. Cissy Houston was the choir minister at New Hope Baptist Church, and it was there that a young Houston got her start. Even as a child, Houston was able to wow audiences; she later told Diane Sawyer that a rapturous response from the congregation at New Hope had a powerful effect upon her: "I think I knew then that [my singing ability] was an infectious thing that God had given me."

By the time she turned 15, Houston was performing often with her mother and trying to get a record deal of her own. Around the same time, she was discovered by a photographer who was awed by her natural beauty. She soon became an extremely sought-after teen model, one of the first African American women to appear on the cover of Seventeen magazine. But music remained her true love.

When she was 19, Houston was discovered in a nightclub by Arista Records' Clive Davis, who signed her immediately and took the helm of her career as she navigated from gospel to pop stardom. In 1983, Houston made her debut on national television, appearing on The Merv Griffin Show to sing "Home" from the musical The Wiz . She and Davis spent the next two years working on her debut album, finding the best producers and songwriters available to showcase her amazing vocal talent.

Whitney Houston Album: “Saving All My Love for You” and “How Will I Know”

In 1985, the artist released her debut album, Whitney Houston , and almost immediately became a smash pop sensation. Over the next year, her hit singles "Saving All My Love for You" and "How Will I Know" helped the album reach the top of the charts, where it stayed for 14 non-consecutive weeks. Houston won a Grammy in 1986 for "Saving All My Love for You"; the award was presented to the singer by her cousin Dionne Warwick .

Whitney Album: “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”

Houston followed the monumental success of her first album with a second release, Whitney , in 1987. That record, too, went platinum many times over and won a Grammy for the single "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)," with a successful world tour following. During this time, the singer also appeared at a concert for Nelson Mandela's birthday and founded the Whitney Houston Foundation for Children, a nonprofit organization that funds projects to help needy children over the world.

By 1992, Houston was on top of the world, but her life was about to get very complicated very quickly. That year she married the R&B singer Bobby Brown , formerly of New Edition, after a three-year engagement. At first, the marriage was passionate and loving, but things turned sour as the decade progressed. Both Brown and Houston battled substance abuse and increasingly erratic behavior, with Houston later alluding to emotional abuse from Brown and domestic violence.

The Bodyguard Album: “I Will Always Love You”

In spite of these growing personal troubles, Houston continued to progress in her career, crossing over successfully into acting in 1992 by starring opposite Kevin Costner in the wildly popular movie The Bodyguard . With this project, she set a trend for her films to follow: For each movie she also released hit singles, creating sensational record sales for the soundtracks. Her smash single from The Bodyguard , a cover of Dolly Parton 's "I Will Always Love You" from 1974, proved to be Houston's biggest hit ever, spending a record-breaking 14 weeks atop the U.S. charts. The soundtrack album went on to win Houston three Grammys, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year. Later in the 1990s, Houston also starred in Wait ing to Exhale and The Preacher's Wife , both accompanied by hit soundtracks as well.

My Love Is Your Love Album: “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay”

In 1998, Houston released My Love Is Your Love , her first non-soundtrack studio album in many years, and it earned her another Grammy for the single "It's Not Right But It's Okay," The album was not as successful as her previous full-length releases, though her collaboration with Mariah Carey in the animated film The Prince of Egypt produced a hit single, "When You Believe," which won an Academy Award.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Houston's increasingly rocky marriage, struggles with drugs and health problems threatened to derail her career. Several concert cancellations and a notorious TV interview with Sawyer in 2002, in which Houston appeared far too thin and in poor health, led many to speculate that she was on the verge of a breakdown.

Just Whitney Album

In 2004, when production began on the TV reality series Being Bobby Brown , Houston received substantial airtime. The show aired during the worst years of the couple's crumbling marriage; drug use, lifestyle excess and bad behavior were all caught on tape and Houston's reputation sunk to new lows. Houston tried to ignore the controversy, charging ahead with her music by releasing Just Whitney… to combat her detractors, but it did not match the success of her earlier works. In spite of her troubled relationship, Houston was still celebrated as a singer, being named the most-awarded female artist of all time by Guinness World Records in 2006.

Over the next few years, Houston attempted to repair her marriage and to break her drug habit, but after several relapses, Cissy had to step in. As Houston explained to Oprah Winfrey in 2009: "[My mother] walks in with the sheriff and she says: 'I have a court injunction here. You do it my way or we're not going to do this at all. You're going to go on TV, and you're going to retire. And say you're going to give this up because it's not worth it.'" Houston took a break from her career, divorced Brown in 2007 and won sole custody of Bobbi Kristina.

I Look to You Album

After almost a decade of struggling with her personal life, Houston seemed to be pulling herself together. She released a new album, I Look To You , in 2009. "The songs themselves will speak to you and you'll understand where I am and some of the changes I've gone through for the better," Houston told Entertainment Tonight . The recording received a warm welcome from music fans, making it to the top of album charts. Her live shows, however, garnered mixed reviews, with some complaining about the quality of her voice.

In early 2012, Houston was rumored to be experiencing financial trouble, but she denied this claim. Indeed, the artist seemed poised for a career upswing: Houston worked on the musical film Sparkle with Jordin Sparks, a remake of the 1976 movie about an all-girl musical group similar to The Supremes, and also reportedly had been approached to join the singing competition series The X Factor as a judge. Unfortunately, Houston did not live long enough to see the latest comeback reach fruition.

Houston died at the age of 48 on February 11, 2012, in Los Angeles at a Beverly Hilton hotel where a Grammy party was being held by Davis. Houston had been seen out in the days before her death, including at one of the pre-Grammy parties. According to a report released by the Los Angeles County coroner's office on March 22, 2012, the official cause of her death was an accidental drowning. The effects of heart disease and cocaine found in her system were contributing factors as well.

With her passing, the music world lost one of its most legendary stars. Davis once said that Houston "is in the great tradition of great, great singers, whether it's Lena Horne or Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan or Gladys Knight ."

Daughter Bobbi Kristina dealt with much tumult after the death of her mother. She was hospitalized immediately after the passing of Houston due to emotional trauma but later spoke with Winfrey about returning to her mother's home and feeling her mother's presence. Houston left everything to her daughter, but eventually the singer's sister-in-law Pat Houston became the executor of the estate.

Bobbi Kristina had public conflicts with her grandmother, Cissy, over the publishing of the Houston biography Remembering Whitney . In early 2014, she was reported to have been married to Nick Gordon, who had been taken in by Houston during his childhood and raised with Bobbi Kristina, yet later reports stated that they weren't legally wed. In another confrontation, she made disparaging comments via Twitter about Angela Bassett after the actress/director opted to cast a trained actress in the lead role of a Houston biopic instead of Bobbi Kristina.

On January 31, 2015, nearly three years to the date of her mother's death, Bobbi Kristina was discovered face down in a bathtub in her Roswell, Georgia, home by associate Max Lomas. After being admitted to North Fulton Hospital, she was eventually taken to Emory University Hospital, having been placed into a medically-induced coma.

Her father and grandmother visited her bedside amid calls for public support and prayer, with a candlelight vigil held on February 10 in suburban Atlanta. Bobbi Kristina Brown died on July 26, 2015, at Peachtree Christian Hospice in Duluth, Georgia. She was 22 years old.

Backed by the Houston estate, the documentary Whitney was released in July 2018, with Houston's sister-in-law, Pat, serving as executive producer.

“Everyone that has a life has a story. It’s her story and it’s played out in the documentary," Pat Houston told Good Morning America a few weeks before the film's release. "She narrated a lot of it herself. It’s just her life and her story as the family would see it, and the friends, who dealt with it every single day.”

The documentary premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. In the doc, it is revealed that her cousin, Dee Dee Warwick, sister of Dionne Warwick, allegedly sexually abused the singer. Houston’s brother told filmmakers he was abused by Dee Dee and believed his sister was too. The documentary also provided insight into Houston's relationship with drugs — her brother Michael admitted that he gave her marijuana and cocaine as a gift for her 16th birthday — as well as her kinship with fellow pop superstar Michael Jackson .

The following year brought more revelations about the singer's private life with the publication of A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston , by Robyn Crawford . A longtime friend and assistant, Crawford confirmed that the two also had a romantic relationship before Houston became a global superstar.

Memories and Higher Love

In 2016, fans were treated to the release of a new Houston single, "Memories," with Malaysian singer Siti Nurhaliza sharing credit on the track. Houston's vocals had been recorded nearly 35 years earlier. In 2019, another new Houston single surfaced, this one a cover of Steve Winwood's 1986 hit "Higher Love." Houston had recorded a version that was originally meant for her 1990 album I'm Your Baby Tonight , before it was remixed for a posthumous release by Norwegian DJ and producer Kygo.

Hologram Tour

In 2019, it was announced that Houston's hologram would be going on tour the following year. The production was being developed by BASE Holograms, which had already debuted shows featuring the likenesses of Greek opera diva Maria Callas and American rock 'n' roll great Roy Orbison .

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

On January 15, 2020, it was announced that Houston had been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Watch Whitney on Lifetime Movie Club

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Whitney Houston
• Birth date: August 9, 1963
• Birth State: New Jersey
• Birth City: Newark
• Astrological Sign: Leo
• Death date: February 11, 2012
• Death State: California
• Death City: Beverly Hills

Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us !

• From the beginning, the camera and I were great friends. I know the eye of the camera is on me—eye to eye. It loves me, and I love it.
• Well, I've gone from singing too white to R&B diva, and now I'm hip-hop. I guess it's flattering to know that I can sing it all.
• I know what my color is. I was raised in a Black community with Black people, so that has never been a thing with me. Yet I've gotten flack about being a pop success but that doesn't mean I'm white ... pop music has never been all white.
• Nobody makes me do anything I don't want to do. It's my decision. So the biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy. And that's how I have to deal with it.
• Cracking gum or sitting with your legs open were considered unacceptable ... and I'd better not come back from the yard with scratched knees."[On mother Cissy Houston's parenting.]
• I wanted to be a teacher. I love children, so I wanted to deal with children. Then I wanted to be a veterinarian. But by the age of 10 or 11, when I opened my mouth and said, 'Oh God, what's this?' I kind of knew teaching and being a veterinarian were going to have to wait. What's in your soul is in your soul.
• They're devils to me ... and they're out to eat my flesh."[On the media.]
• Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let's get that straight. OK? We don't do crack. We don't do that. Crack is whack.
• I can tell you that I am not self-destructive. I'm not a person who wants to die. I'm a person who has life, who wants to live. And I always have. And I wouldn't mistake it for anything else other than that.

The Biography.com staff is a team of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective experience. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications. Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists. Our staff also works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. To meet the team, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us

Black History

Jesse Owens

Alice Coachman

Wilma Rudolph

Tiger Woods

Deb Haaland

10 Famous Langston Hughes Poems

5 Crowning Achievements of Maya Angelou

Ava DuVernay

Octavia Spencer

Inventor Garrett Morgan’s Lifesaving 1916 Rescue

Get to Know 5 History-Making Black Country Singers

Whitney Houston: A Timeline of Her Life and Legacy

Remembering whitney houston: inside her rise to fame, 'bridgerton's luke newton reacts to having off-screen chemistry with nicola coughlan, john legend shares chrissy teigen neck injury update after 'daring' gymnastics accident (exclusive), chilli reacts to matthew lawrence annoying his brothers with tlc lyrics, 'the strangers' creepily crash madelaine petsch & froy gutierrez’s interview (exclusive), what ryan reynolds and blake lively are calling 4th kid as they 'wait' for taylor swift to name them, 'the office' reboot: john krasinski on if there's a chance he could return as jim (exclusive), corinne foxx 'in the thick' of wedding planning with 'very excited' dad jamie (exclusive), why leslie bibb is terrified to talk 'the white lotus' season 3 (exclusive), 'if': emily blunt 'immensely' proud of husband john krasinski's love letter to their kids, angelina jolie's daughter vivienne makes surprise appearance on 'today' show, jennifer lopez confesses she's the ‘thinnest’ she’s ever been, 'the voice': snoop dogg and michael bublé join reba mcentire and gwen stefani as coaches, steve buscemi attacked in nyc: what we know about seemingly random assault, ‘american idol’ why lionel richie wanted to ‘stop’ katy perry’s disney night transformation, watch bradley cooper’s viral dance moves at taylor swift’s eras tour, why lionel richie calls daughter sofia's unborn baby a 'diva' (exclusive), john krasinski doesn't think his kids knew what he did for a living until 'if' (exclusive), king charles hands over military duties to prince william amid cancer battle, how carol burnett thanked bradley cooper for his surprise birthday message (exclusive), priyanka chopra uses daughter malti in impressive workout routine, from the church choir to the super bowl to the grammys stage, whitney's story is one of a generational talent gone too soon..

One of the most iconic performers of the 20th century, Whitney Houston’s legacy will remain as long as music can be played. With the release of the new biopic, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody , fans new and old are getting a closer look at the life, career and struggles of a generational talent gone too soon.

From her early days singing in church, to her star-making Super Bowl rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," to major movie roles and even more successful soundtracks, Whitney was a superstar in every sense of the word. However, her personal life was plagued by complicated relationships and substance abuse, the latter of which lead to her death in 2012 at just 48 years old.

Naomi Ackie stars as Whitney in the Houston family-approved biopic, and she told ET that having the support of Whitney's family and friends was instrumental in doing justice to the singer's story.

"Reading what Clive [Davis] had written, what Pat [Houston] had written, it was so heartwarming," she added. "And to get to see them in so many different parts of the process, they were always so supportive. Always willing to share anything to help me tell the story properly. I'm eternally grateful for them, and really quite touched by their involvement and how much they wanted this part of her story to be told."

Read on for a look at the life and legacy of one of the greatest performers of all time.

The Early Years

Whitney was born on August 9, 1963, in Newark, New Jersey, to John Russell Houston Jr. and Emily "Cissy" Houston (née Drinkard). She was surrounded by music from an early age -- Cissy was a gospel singer who later joined a popular session vocal group called the The Sweet Inspirations, who performed on songs with stars like Elvis Presley , Dusty Springfield, Jimi Hendrix, Van Morrison and more. Darlene Love was Whitney’s godmother, Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick were first cousins, and Aretha Franklin was considered an honorary aunt.

Whitney started out singing in church at the age of five, and also learned to play the piano. She was a soloist by age 11, and by 14, had started singing backup for her mother at cabaret clubs in New York City. She also started modeling, becoming one of the first women of color to cover a fashion magazine when she appeared on the cover of Seventeen . 

She continued performing and recording throughout high school -- with Cissy insisting she turn down offers from record labels until her education was complete -- but her big moment came when Arista Records head Clive Davis came to see her perform and was instantly impressed, signing her to a worldwide deal on April 10, 1983.

Making It Big

Whitney’s first major hit was a duet with Teddy Pendergrass, “Hold Me,” which became a Top 5 R&B hit prior to the release of her self-titled debut album. Whitney Houston , released on Feb. 14, 1985, went platinum 13 times over and included mega hits like “Saving All My Love for You,” “Greatest Love of All” and “How Will I Know.”

She followed it up with 1987’s Whitney , which was certified Diamond and made Whitney the first female act to achieve four No. 1 hits from one album: "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)", "Didn't We Almost Have It All", "So Emotional" and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go.”

The success of her first two albums established Whitney as a global superstar -- with seven consecutive Billboard No. 1 hits breaking a record previously shared by The Beatles and The Bee Gees. Then, she stepped onto one of the biggest stages of her career in January 1991, when she performed a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before Super Bowl XXV amid the Persian Gulf War. Whitney’s recording of the national anthem peaked at No. 20 on the Hot 100 and became the most successful recording of the song.

Over the course of her career, Whitney released five more albums -- I'm Your Baby Tonight, My Love Is Your Love, Just Whitney, One Wish: The Holiday Album, and I Look to You -- and two soundtrack albums, all of which were certified diamond, multi-platinum or platinum. She was the top-selling female R&B artist of the 20th century, and has sold more physical singles than any other female solo artist in history.

She also garnered dozens of awards during her career, including two Emmy Awards, eight GRAMMYs (including two GRAMMY Hall of Fame honors), 14 World Music Awards, 16 Billboard Music Awards and 22 American Music Awards.

The Silver Screen

In addition to her music career, Whitney also found success in the movies. Her first film role came in 1992’s The Bodyguard. The romantic drama -- in which Houston played a famous singer with a stalker who falls in love with her bodyguard, played by Kevin Costner -- received mixed reviews, but it was massively successful at the box office, earning $410 million worldwide.

Even more successful was The Bodyguard soundtrack, on which Whitney co-executive produced and recorded six new songs. Her cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” remains one of the best-selling physical singles of all time -- going platinum 18 times over -- and won the performer the GRAMMY Awards for Album of the Year and Record of the Year in 1994. The album would go on to be named the top-selling Soundtrack Album of the Century by the RIAA.

Whitney also performed on the soundtracks for her next two films, 1995’s Waiting to Exhale and 1996’s The Preacher’s Wife. In 1997, she co-executive produced and starred in a television adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella , playing the Fairy Godmother to Brandy’s titular princess. The special was ABC’s highest-rated in 16 years, racking up over 60 million viewers, and remains a fan favorite to this day.

Later in her career, Whitney teamed up with other music stars on several movie projects, recording the duet “When You Believe” with Mariah Carey for the 1998 animated film The Prince of Egypt , and singing with Jordin Sparks in the 2011 remake of Sparkle , which ended up being her final film and music release.

Love and Troubles

After being linked to stars like Jermaine Jackson, Randall Cunningham and Eddie Murphy in the early years of her career, Whitney met Bobby Brown in 1989 and the pair were married on July 18, 1992. The relationship was a roller coaster from the start with Brown facing numerous legal troubles for drunk driving, drug possession and battery, and Houston suffering miscarriages before and after the couple welcomed their only child, daughter Bobbi Kristina, on March 4, 1993.

The later years of Whitney's marriage to Bobby also brought increased speculation about the couple’s drug use and erratic behavior. In early 2000, she had marijuana found in her bags at a Hawaiian airport, no-showed for the ceremony celebrating Clive Davis’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and was fired from performing at the Academy Awards after appearing “distracted and jittery” during rehearsals.

Then, there was Whitney’s relationship with Robyn Crawford . The pair met as teens, when they were counselors at a summer camp in East Orange, Jersey, and remained inseparable for many years. Speculation about the nature of their relationship was always dispelled during Whitney’s life, however, in Robyn’s 2019 memoir , she claimed that the pair had a sexual relationship in their early years, but stopped being physical at the start of Whitney’s musical career.

However, Robyn remained close for many years, serving as Whitney’s personal assistant and working with her management company until 2000, when she quit. In her book, Robyn says that she left because of Whitney’s refusal to seek help for her drug use.

Early on, Whitney denied rumors of drug use, however, in her infamous “crack is whack” interview with Diane Sawyer in 2002, she admitted to using cocaine, marijuana, alcohol and pills, and added that her highly-speculated weight loss was in fact due to drug use. 

In 2003, Bobby was charged with battery after an incident in which he assaulted Whitney, and in 2004, the couple starred in one season of his ill-fated reality show, Being Bobby Brown . The series was an unflattering look at the couple’s home life and led to further speculation about their substance use and domestic turmoil.

In a 2009 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Whitney admitted that her drug use increased following the birth of her daughter and the success of The Bodyguard. She also opened up about more domestic disputes with Bobby and revealed that she had attended a 30-day rehab program. In 2011, Whitney returned to rehab, with a rep saying at the time that the outpatient treatment was a part of Houston's ongoing recovery process.  

Gone Too Soon

Whitney was found dead in her hotel room at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, on Feb. 11, 2012. It was GRAMMY Awards weekend, and the performer was scheduled to attend the annual pre-GRAMMYs bash held by her longtime friend and producer Clive Davis that night. She was discovered in the bathtub -- the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office later determined that her death was caused by drowning and the "effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use.”

The singer was mourned in a private funeral, with performances by Stevie Wonder, CeCe Winans, Alicia Keys, Kim Burrell, and R. Kelly and remarks by Clive Davis, Kevin Costner, Dionne Warwick, music director Rickey Minor, and Ray Watson, Whitney’s security guard for the previous 11 years. 

Sadly, tragedy followed Whitney in death, as her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, died just three years later, after also being found unresponsive in a bathtub. She was just 22.

It’s been over 10 years since Whitney’s death, but there’s no denying that her legacy continues to remain strong. In the weeks following her death, the singer became the first and only female act to ever place three albums in the Top 10 of the US Billboard 200 Album Chart all at the same time, with Whitney: The Greatest Hits at No. 2, The Bodyguard at No. 6 and Whitney Houston at No. 9.

To this day, she remains the first and only Black artist to have three Diamond-certified albums. The Bodyguard soundtrack remains the best-selling soundtrack album of all time, and The Preacher's Wife soundtrack is the best-selling gospel album of all time.

On January 15, 2020, Whitney was announced as an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 2020 class, and in March 2020, the Library of Congress announced that Houston’s rendition of "I Will Always Love You" had been added to its National Recording Registry, a list of "aural treasures worthy of preservation" due to their "cultural, historical and aesthetic importance" in the American soundscape. 

And in October 2020, the music video for "I Will Always Love You" surpassed 1 billion views on YouTube, making Houston the first solo 20th-century artist to have a video reach that milestone --  and proving that she’s just as relevant as ever.

Now, with the release of  Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody,  fans new and old can get more perspective on one of the greatest musical talents of her generation.

Ackie told ET that she spent months researching the superstar, "studying the songs and her history and what she was like as a child and all this beautiful, imaginary work that me, as an actor, I just like live for... It really pushed me to my outer limits and I'm so happy that I got to do it."

RELATED CONTENT:

Naomi Ackie's Whitney Houston Performance Gave Stanley Tucci 'Chills'

How to Watch the Whitney Houston Biopic 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody'

Naomi Ackie and Nafessa Williams on Whitney and Robyn's 'Pure Love'

Updates on celebrity news, tv, fashion and more.

• Whitney Houston
• I Wanna Dance with Somebody

Latest News

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Whitney Houston, Pop Superstar, Dies at 48

By Jon Pareles and Adam Nagourney

• Feb. 11, 2012

Whitney Houston, the multimillion-selling singer who emerged in the 1980s as one of her generation’s greatest R & B voices, only to deteriorate through years of cocaine use and an abusive marriage, died on Saturday in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 48.

Her death came as the music industry descended on Los Angeles for the annual celebration of the Grammy Awards, and Ms. Houston was — for all her difficulties over the years — one of its queens. She was staying at the Beverly Hilton hotel on Saturday to attend a pre-Grammy party being hosted by Clive Davis, the founder of Arista Records, who had been her pop mentor.

Ms. Houston was found in her room at 3:55 p.m., and paramedics spent close to 20 minutes trying to revive her, the authorities said. There was no immediate word on the cause of her death, but the authorities said there were no signs of foul play.

From the start of her career more than two decades ago, Ms. Houston had the talent, looks and pedigree of a pop superstar. She was the daughter of Cissy Houston, a gospel and pop singer who had backed up Aretha Franklin, and the cousin of Dionne Warwick. (Ms. Franklin is Ms. Houston’s godmother.)

Ms. Houston’s range spanned three octaves, and her voice was plush, vibrant and often spectacular. She could pour on the exuberant flourishes of gospel or peal a simple pop chorus; she could sing sweetly or unleash a sultry rasp.

Dressed in everything from formal gowns to T-shirts, she cultivated the image of a fun-loving but ardent good girl, the voice behind songs as perky as “ I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) ” and as torchy as what became her signature song, a version of Dolly Parton’s “ I Will Always Love You .”

But by the mid-1990s, even as she was moving into acting with films like “The Bodyguard” and “The Preacher’s Wife,” she became what she described, in a 2009 interview with Oprah Winfrey, as a “heavy” user of marijuana and cocaine. By the 2000s she was struggling; her voice grew smaller, scratchier and less secure, and her performances grew erratic.

All of Ms. Houston’s studio albums were million-sellers, and two have sold more than 10 million copies in the United States alone: her 1985 debut album and the 1992 soundtrack to “The Bodyguard,” which includes “I Will Always Love You.”

But her marriage to the singer Bobby Brown — which was, at one point, documented in a Bravo reality television series, “Being Bobby Brown” — grew miserable, and in the 2000s, her singles slipped from the top 10. Ms. Houston became a tabloid subject: the National Enquirer ran a photo of her bathroom showing drug paraphernalia. And each new album — “Just Whitney” in 2002 and “I Look to You” in 2009 — became a comeback.

At Central Park in 2009, singing for “Good Morning America,” her voice was frayed , and on the world tour that followed the release of the album “I Look to You” that year, she was often shaky.

Whitney Houston was born on Aug. 9, 1963, in Newark. She sang in church, and as a teenager in the 1970s and early 1980s, she worked as a backup studio singer and featured vocalist with acts including Chaka Khan, the Neville Brothers and Bill Laswell’s Material.

Mr. Davis signed her after hearing her perform in a New York City nightclub, and spent two years supervising production of the album “Whitney Houston,” which was released in 1985. It placed her remarkable voice in polished, catchy songs that straddled pop and R & B, and it included three No. 1 singles: “ Saving All My Love for You ,” “ How Will I Know ” and “ The Greatest Love of All .”

Because Ms. Houston had been credited on previous recordings, including a 1984 duet with Teddy Pendergrass, she was ruled ineligible for the best new artist category of the Grammy Awards; the eligibility criteria have since been changed. But with “Saving All My Love for You,” she won her first Grammy award, for best female pop vocal performance, an award she would win twice more.

Her popularity soared for the next decade. Her second album, “Whitney,” in 1987, became the first album by a woman to enter the Billboard charts at No. 1, and it included four No. 1 singles. She shifted her pop slightly toward R & B on her third album, “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” in 1990, which had two more No. 1 singles.

For much of the 1990s, she turned to acting, bolstered by her music. She played a pop diva in “The Bodyguard,” and its soundtrack album — including the hits “I Will Always Love You,” “ I’m Every Woman ,” “ I Have Nothing ” and “ Run to You ” — went on to sell 17 million copies in the United States. It won the Grammy for album of the year, and “I Will Always Love You” won record of the year (for a single). After making the films “Waiting To Exhale” in 1995 and “The Preacher’s Wife” in 1996 — which gave her the occasion to make a gospel album — Ms. Houston resumed her pop career with “My Love Is Your Love” in 1998.

Ms. Houston married Mr. Brown in 1992, and in 1993 they had a daughter, Bobbi Kristina, who survives her. Ms. Houston’s 2009 interview with Ms. Winfrey portrayed it as a passionate and then turbulent marriage, marred by drug use and by his professional jealousy, psychological abuse and physical confrontations. They divorced in 2007.

Her albums in the 2000s advanced a new persona for Ms. Houston. “Just Whitney,” in 2002, was defensive and scrappy, lashing out at the media and insisting on her loyalty to her man. Her most recent studio album, “I Look to You,” appeared in 2009, and it, too, reached No. 1. The album included a hard-headed breakup song, “Salute,” and a hymnlike anthem, “ I Didn’t Know My Own Strength .” Ms. Houston sang, “I crashed down and I tumbled, but I did not crumble/I got through all the pain,” in a voice that showed scars.

Neil R. Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which bestows the Grammys, called her “one of the world’s greatest pop singers of all time, who leaves behind a robust musical soundtrack.”

“A light has been dimmed in our music community today,” he said.

Lt. Mark Rosen, a spokesman for the Beverly Hills Police Department, said that emergency workers responded to a 911 call from security at the Beverly Hilton hotel on Wilshire Boulevard at 3:43 p.m., saying that Ms. Houston was unconscious in her fourth-floor suite. He said that some Fire Department personnel were already on the scene to help prepare for a pre-Grammy party.

Lieutenant Rosen said that detectives had arrived to conduct what he said was a full-scale investigation into the death. He said that Ms. Houston’s body was still in the hotel room as of 8 p.m. and would not be removed until the investigation was completed.

“There were no obvious signs of foul play,” he said. “It’s still fresh an investigation to know whether — the reality is she was too far too young to die and any time you have the death of someone this age it is the subject of an investigation.”

Ms. Houston arrived at the hotel with what Lieutenant Rosen described as an entourage of friends and family, some of whom were in the hotel suite at the time. He said that police had notified Ms. Houston’s mother and daughter of the death; it was unclear whether or not they were there.

At Mr. Davis’s party, where Ms. Houston was a regular guest and performer, tourists shot cellphone pictures of a police crime laboratory van parked outside. But inside, the glamour of the event seemed undiminished, even if Ms Houston’s name was on everyone’s lips

Whitney Houston, a Star on Stage and in Film

View Slide Show ›

The streets in front of the Beverly Hilton, already crowded because of the Grammy Awards party taking place there, swarmed with reporters and fans, drawn by the news of this latest high-profile pop star dying in Los Angeles.

Even after the news of Ms. Houston’s death had been released, celebrities and other partygoers continued to arrive for the Davis event, which went on as planned, while fans stood behind a rope trying to take pictures. Dressed in evening gowns and tuxedos, people stepped out of limousines at curbside and streamed into the hotel.

A number of fans came to mourn Ms. Houston and to show their support. “I was in utter, total disbelief,” Lavetris Singleton said. “Who was not a fan of Whitney Houston at some point?”

“I want to show support because she inspired a lot of people and nobody’s perfect,” she said. “But if we’re not out here then she’ll be forgotten. We are her legacy.”

Performers at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, where the Grammys are to be held, heard about Ms. Houston’s death just as Rihanna and Coldplay were about to rehearse their number for the awards.

The show’s producer, Ken Ehrlich, debated about how to acknowledge Ms. Houston’s death. (The show is already scheduled to include a tribute by Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt to Etta James, the blues singer who died last month, as well as a video segment about music figures who died in 2011.)

After the initial shock, Mr. Ehrlich said he called Jennifer Hudson and asked her to come and sing one of Ms. Houston’s songs during the televised show on Sunday as a simple memorial. “We are going to do something very simple, not elaborate,” he said. “We just want to keep it respectful.”

“My feeling was it’s too early to do an extended tribute,” Mr. Ehrlich added, “but we really wanted to remember her because she was so closely tied to the Grammys.”

Besides her daughter, now 18, Ms. Houston is survived by her mother. A woman who answered the telephone at the Edgewater, N.J., home of Ms. Houston’s mother on Saturday night said she would not speak to reporters.

An obituary on Monday and in some copies on Sunday about the singer Whitney Houston misstated the name of her third album and the number of No. 1 singles it contained. The album is “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” not “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight,” and it had two No. 1 singles, not three.

How we handle corrections

Jon Pareles reported from New York, and Adam Nagourney from Santa Barbara, Calif. Reporting was contributed by Ian Lovett, Jennifer Medina and Ben Sisario in Los Angeles and Channing Joseph and James C. McKinley Jr. in New York.

Whitney Houston (1963-2012)

• Music Artist

IMDbPro Starmeter See rank

• 47 wins & 85 nominations total

• Rachel Marron

• Julia Biggs

• Whitney Houston

• Nippy (uncredited)

• executive producer

Personal details

• Apple Music
• 5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
• August 9 , 1963
• Newark, New Jersey, USA
• February 11 , 2012
• Beverly Hills, California, USA (accidental drowning)
• Bobby Brown July 18, 1992 - April 24, 2007 (divorced, 1 child)
• Bobbi Kristina Brown
• Parents Cissy Houston
• Relatives Michael Houston (Sibling)
• Other works (1994-95) TV commercials: AT&T True Voice
• 3 Biographical Movies
• 3 Print Biographies
• 9 Portrayals
• 5 Interviews
• 22 Articles
• 9 Pictorials
• 20 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

• Trivia Because she passed away the night before the 54th Grammy Awards (2012), the host for the evening, LL Cool J , opened the show with a tribute and a prayer in her honor.
• Quotes I almost wish I could be more exciting, that I could match what is happening out there to me.
• Trademarks Powerful mezzo-soprano vocals
• The Prom Queen of Soul
• The Princess of Pop
• The Preacher's Wife ( 1996 ) $10,000,000
• When did Whitney Houston die?
• How did Whitney Houston die?
• How old was Whitney Houston when she died?

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Add demo reel with IMDbPro

How much have you seen?

Recently viewed

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Author Interviews

Whitney houston's legacy lives on 10 years after her death.

Adrian Florido

Sarah Handel

NPR's Adrian Florido talks with music critic Gerrick Kennedy, who has spent a lot of time researching and thinking about Whitney Houston's lasting legacy, about his book: Didn't We Almost Have it All.

Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

• Whitney Houston

• Australia edition
• Europe edition
• International edition

Whitney Houston obituary

Few pop singers have been gifted with a voice as glorious as Whitney Houston's, and even fewer have treated their talent with the frustrating indifference she did toward the end of her life. She sold more records and received more awards than almost any other female pop star of the 20th century, but spent most of her last years mired in a drug addiction that sapped her will to sing and left her in a shambolic state.

Her death at the age of 48 will send her albums back into the charts, and introduce her music to a generation who knew her only as a troubled character whose commercial success peaked in the 1990s. Though never edgy as a musician – her skills were often wasted on bland adult-contemporary songs – she was more than just a purveyor of anodyne chart hits. Houston was lauded by other vocalists for her impeccable technique and polish, qualities that elevated her above almost every other star of her era.

Houston was gospel-trained, but her voice also lent itself to R&B, pop and ballads, and she was adept at each style. It was a ballad that provided her biggest hit, a 1992 cover version of Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You. Her melodramatic rendition, featuring one of her most powerful vocals, sold 12m copies worldwide, making it one of the biggest singles of all time.

Her total record sales topped 170m, putting her in an elite group of female superstars that included Mariah Carey and Celine Dion, both of whom were heavily influenced by her emotional, vibrato-laden style.

Houston often gravitated to dramatic songs with lyrics about triumphing over the odds, and has been credited with inventing the "pop diva" genre that has inspired singers to the present day. She was also the first black woman to break through the colour bar at the all-important MTV, which hitherto had played white artists almost exclusively. The station's heavy rotation of her videos made her a familiar face to Middle America, and her mix of glamour, talent and approachability made her an aspirational figure for millions of teenage girls, both black and white. A US magazine editor dubbed her "the first black America's sweetheart".

Houston's success made her rich, enabling her to maintain a cocaine habit that kept her from making records for years at a time in her 30s and 40s. Looking back on her addiction after kicking it in the late 2000s, she said paying for it had been easy, as "there was so much money". But she "didn't think about the singing part any more," and when she did return to touring, the neglect showed. She was unable to get through concerts without breathlessness and frequent halts. Her comeback tour in 2010 was marred by reviews claiming she was unfit to be on stage, and a clip of her sounding wobbly at a gig in Birmingham was played on the TV news.

Houston was born in Newark, New Jersey, to a musical family: she was the daughter of the gospel star Cissy Houston, a cousin of Dionne Warwick and goddaughter of Aretha Franklin. She began singing in her church choir at the age of 11, and as a young teenager occasionally performed at her mother's concerts. Her voice attracted attention, and when she was 15, she and Cissy sang backup on Chaka Khan's 1978 hit I'm Every Woman.

She went on to provide vocals for Lou Rawls and Jermaine Jackson, and simultaneously developed a sideline in modelling. Her fresh-faced prettiness made her a success in front of the camera, and she was the second black model to appear on the cover of the American magazine Seventeen in 1981, when black faces were a rarity in fashion magazines. Even Seventeen hedged its bets by putting a white model next to her in the photo.

By her late teens, Houston had been a featured vocalist on albums by the disco songwriter Paul Jabara and the avant-garde New York funk outfit Material. By then, her style was fully formed; on the Material track Memories, the richness of her tone was balanced by a poise and precision that was uncanny in a teenager. Inevitably, she was offered record deals, and signed with the Arista label, where she stayed for the rest of her life.

Convinced that she had what it took to be a blockbusting star, Arista's influential president, Clive Davis, personally oversaw the recording of her first album. He also turned up with her in 1983 on the Merv Griffin chat show, where she was introduced to the American public. She sang Home, from the soundtrack of The Wiz, and her vocals were flawless, but her frumpy ruffled dress and short, natural hair didn't project what Arista considered the right – saleable – image. By the time her first album came out, in 1985, she'd been given a thorough makeover: the cover photo showed a sleek-haired, golden-skinned sylph wearing an elegantly draped white gown.

Whitney Houston, as the debut was titled, was praised not for the music, which was unexceptional dance-pop, so much as for the promise the 21-year-old singer showed. "Obviously headed for stardom," predicted Rolling Stone magazine. It sold 3m copies in the US in its first year, and eventually about 25m globally. It also won a Grammy award, the first of six in her career.

The next few years saw her break the Beatles' record for the greatest number of No 1 singles in a row – she managed seven – and become America's highest-earning black female entertainer. Her ubiquity on radio and TV paved the way for other African-American singers and groups such as Mary J Blige and Destiny's Child, who became hugely popular.

Her accessibility to all ages and cultural backgrounds helped less easily marketed artists like Blige, but, as culturally significant as she was, Houston was primarily an entertainer. Despite occasional involvement in issues such as the fight against apartheid, which saw her appear at the concert for Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday, she was not an activist. Whatever her private views on politics and race, her public self was always poised and wholesome. Ironically, a venture into a more urban, soulful sound on the 1990 album I'm Your Baby Tonight elicited a sceptical reaction from some black critics.

Commercially, her most barnstorming project was the 1992 film The Bodyguard. Kevin Costner played the titular guard, while Houston played a film star and sang on the soundtrack. Her acting won her a Razzie award for worst actress (which did not deter her from making several more films, and getting better reviews), but the soundtrack became the biggest album of her career, selling 44m copies and spawning I Will Always Love You. The song was inescapable, spending 14 weeks at No 1 in the US and roosting at the top of nearly every other pop chart in the world.

The same year, she married ex-boy band member Bobby Brown, who came to be widely blamed for her downward spiral. "The princess marries the bad boy," Houston wryly described the union years later. The marriage produced her only child, Bobbi Kristina, but Brown was jealous of his wife's success and was emotionally abusive. Her drug use began around that time, and by 1996 she was a daily user. She made one other album that decade, the well-reviewed My Love Is Your Love (1998), but by the turn of the century stories about her behaviour were rife.

Houston turned up late for events or missed them altogether, was dropped as a performer at the 2000 Oscars because she was "out of it" at rehearsals, was arrested for marijuana possession and looked skeletal at a Michael Jackson tribute in 2001.

Promoting her 2002 album, Just Whitney, she told a TV interviewer, "Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. We don't do crack. Crack is whack." But she was freebasing cocaine, and as the decade went on she was photographed looking dishevelled and frighteningly haggard. She and Brown would spend a week at a time taking drugs and watching TV, she later said. In her addled state she agreed to appear on a reality show called Being Bobby Brown (2005) and succeeded in losing the last remnants of her dignity, telling her husband in one episode: "I need to poop a poop."

Even in a decade in which celebrities regularly suffered humiliating falls from grace, Houston's was shocking. Narcotics and her toxic relationship with Brown ravaged her looks and robbed her voice of its ability to soar.

Her mother forced her into rehab in 2006, and the following year Houston divorced Brown. Her last album, I Look to You, came out in 2009 to generally positive reviews. Her name still retained enough star-power to sell out most of the gigs on the tour promoting it, but many fans complained that her voice was no longer up to the rigours of touring.

In May 2011 Houston underwent a further period of rehab. Last autumn she returned to acting for a remake with the American Idol winner Jordin Sparks of the 1976 film Sparkle. Filming of the story of the effect of fame and drugs on a singing group of three sisters was completed recently.

Houston was found dead, the cause not immediately clear, in a hotel room in Los Angeles, where she had gone for Davis's pre-Grammy party. That this should happen after so many wasted years comes as a sad contrast to her gilded years as America's sweetheart.

She is survived by her mother, two brothers and her daughter.

• Whitney Houston
• Pop and rock

Most viewed

Whitney Houston Biography and Profile

• Top Artists
• Alternative Music
• Classical Music
• Country Music
• Rap & Hip Hop
• Rhythm & Blues
• World Music
• Heavy Metal
• Latin Music

Whitney Houston has been cited by the Guinness Book of Records as the most awarded female performer of all time. She sold more than 170 million records worldwide.

Whitney Houston's Early Life and Relations

Whitney Houston was born August 9, 1963 in Newark, New Jersey. Her mother was gospel and R&B singer Cissy Houston and Dionne Warwick was a cousin. She also counted singer Darlene Love as godmother and Aretha Franklin as an honorary aunt. By the age of 11, Whitney Houston was performing as a soloist at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark. She attended the Roman Catholic School Mount Saint Dominic Academy. Whitney Houston counts Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight and Roberta Flack among her early musical influences.

Background Vocalist

As a teenager Whitney Houston began touring with her mother as a backup vocalist. In 1978, at the age of 15, she backed Chaka Khan on the hit single "I'm Every Woman." Whitney Houston also sang on recordings by Lou Rawls and Jermaine Jackson. In addition to her music career, Houston began working as a model and appeared on the cover of Seventeen magazine, one of the first Black women to do so. She made an appearance on the 1982 album One Down by Bill Laswell's avant funk band Material. Whitney Houston sang the ballad "Memories." Whitney Houston was given multiple offers for a recording contract in the early 1980s, but her mother insisted that she complete high school first. Finally, legendary music executive Clive Davis signed Whitney Houston to a recording contract with Arista Records in 1983 after seeing her performance in a nightclub.

Whitney Houston's Debut Album

Clive Davis did not rush the recording of Whitney Houston's self-titled debut. In the meantime she recorded "Hold Me," a duet with R&B legend Teddy Pendergrass  for his solo album Love Language . It became a top five R&B hit in 1984. It was also later included on her debut album. That collection titled  Whitney Houston was released in February 1985. She immediately received rave critical reviews. The first single "Someone For Me" was a relative failure and did not chart in the US or UK. The second single "You Give Good Love" took off with R&B audiences hitting #1 on the R&B chart in May 1985. It then started to climb the pop chart and ultimately landed at #3 in July. The following three singles all topped the pop singles chart. The album hit #1 on the album chart a year after its release and stayed there for 14 weeks. It ultimately sold over 13 million copies in the US. At the time, it was the bestselling debut album ever by a solo artist.

Whitney Houston's album earned three Grammy Award nominations in 1986 including for Album of the Year. The early appearance in a duet with Teddy Pendergrass made Whitney Houston ineligible for the Best New Artist category. Her performance on the song "Saving All My Love For You," Whitney Houston's first #1 pop hit, also won her first Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal.

Whitney Album

Anticipation was very high for Whitney Houston's second solo album. Upon release in June 1987, some critics complained that Whitney was too similar to her first album. However, pop audiences disagreed. The first four singles all went to #1. Whitney Houston became the first recording artist to ever release seven consecutive singles that topped the Billboard Hot 100. She bypassed the previous record of six by the Beatles and the  Bee Gees . A fifth single from the album, "Love Will Save the Day," also hit the top 10. The album was the first by a female artist to debut at #1 on the US album chart. The success of concert tours helped Whitney Houston break into the Forbes list of the top 10 moneymaking entertainers.

Whitney Houston repeated her Grammy Awards success in 1988 with three more nominations including a second for Album of the Year. She also won the Best Female Pop Vocal for a second time with "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)."

Whitney Houston's Marriage to Bobby Brown

Whitney Houston met R&B singer Bobby Brown at the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards . They dated for three years and married in 1992. Their relationship was beset with tabloid headlines and Bobby Brown's run-ins with the law. Their family was the subject of a reality TV show Being Bobby Brown which debuted on Bravo in 2004. The pair separated in September 2006, filed for divorce the following month, and the divorce was eventually finalized in April 2007.

Top Hit Singles

• "I Will Always Love You" - 1992
• "Greatest Love Of All" - 1986
• "How Will I Know" - 1985
• "All the Man That I Need" - 1990
• "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" - 1987
• "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" - 1988
• "Didn't We Almost Have It All" - 1987
• "Saving All My Love for You" - 1985
• "I'm Your Baby Tonight" - 1990
• "So Emotional" - 1987

I'm Your Baby Tonight

In response to some critics that her first two albums were "selling out" to white audiences, Whitney Houston's music took a more adamantly urban turn on her 1990 album I'm Your Baby Tonight . It included production by Babyface and Stevie Wonder among others. The album only reached #3 on the US chart but eventually sold over four million copies. The singles "I'm Your Baby Tonight" and "All The Man That I Need" both topped the pop singles chart. In January 1991 Whitney Houston performed the "Star Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XXV during the Gulf War and it was hailed as one of the most stunning televised performances ever. A single of the performance was released and it reached the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100. Whitney Houston became the first artist to turn the national anthem into a top 40 hit.

Whitney Houston's Acting and The Bodyguard

In the early 1990s Whitney Houston branched out beyond music into acting. Her first role was co-starring with Kevin Costner in 1992's The Bodyguard . She recorded six songs for the soundtrack of the film, and one of these, a cover of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," became the biggest hit of her career and one of the biggest pop hits of all time staying at #1 for 14 weeks. Whitney Houston later starred in the feature films Waiting to Exhale and The Preacher's Wife . "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)," released in 1995 on the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack, became Whitney Houston's final #1 pop hit.

My Love Is Your Love

Whitney Houston's first studio, non-soundtrack, album in eight years was released in November 1998. My Love Is Your Love was heavily oriented toward the urban and dance markets. The album included "When You Believe," a duet with Mariah Carey, and four consecutive #1 dance hits, "Heartbreak Hotel," "It's Not Right, But It's OK," "My Love Is Your Love," and "I Learned From the Best." The album failed to reach the top 10 but ultimately sold four million copies and received some of the best reviews of Whitney Houston's career.

Whitney Houston's Decline, Return, and Death

In the early 2000's rumors of drug use, missed performances, and late appearances all tarnished Whitney Houston's public image. She released her fifth studio album Just Whitney in 2002 to mixed reviews. The album debuted inside the top 10 on the album chart but failed to produce any top 40 singles. It did eventually sell a million copies. Whitney Houston released One Wish , a Christmas album, in 2003.

Whitney Houston embarked on a world concert tour in 2004, but the following few years found her doing little connected with music. In March 2007, as her divorce with Bobby Brown was being finalized, Clive Davis announced she would be going into the studio to record new material. After nearly two years of rumors, Whitney Houston took the stage at Clive Davis' pre-Grammy party in February 2009. She released the album in August, 2009. It debuted at #1 and was ultimately certified platinum. The title song and "Million Dollar Bill" were top 20 R&B hits.

In late 2011 reports surfaced that Whitney Houston was planning to produce and star in a remake of the 1976 film Sparkle . However, she was found dead February 11, 2012 in Beverly Hills, California just hours before the annual Clive Davis pre-Grammy Awards party. At the Grammy Awards ceremony itself, Jennifer Hudson performed "I Will Always Love You" in tribute.

The invitation-only memorial service at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey was originally scheduled to last only two hours, but it ultimately went on for four. A wide range of top R&B and gospel artists performed live at the service including Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, R. Kelly, and CeCe Winans. Clive Davis, Kevin Costner, and Dionne Warwick all spoke at the service.

• Top 20 Best Whitney Houston Songs
• Top 10 Pop Music Divas of All Time
• The Top 100 Love Songs of All Time
• Top 10 Pop Songs of 1999
• Top 10 Pop Songs of 1992
• Top 25 Pop Music Duets of All Time
• The 20 Greatest Female R&B Vocalists
• Best R&B Movie Soundtracks
• Biography of Beyonce, Queen of 21st Century R&B
• Top 100 Pop Songs of 2000
• Greatest 20 R&B and Soul Artists of All-Time
• 10 Most Romantic Songs of All Time
• Wyclef Jean's 10 Greatest Hits
• Top 10 Barbra Streisand Songs
• Top 20 Michael Jackson Songs
• Pink's 10 Best Songs

A new book makes a rousing case for Whitney Houston. 7 key takeaways

• Show more sharing options
• Copy Link URL Copied!

On the Shelf

Didn't We Almost Have It All: In Defense of Whitney Houston

By Gerrick Kennedy Abrams: 320 page, $28 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org , whose fees support independent bookstores.

Whitney Houston was loved ; Whitney Houston was ridiculed .

For most of her life, the incomparable singer was forced to make sense of those intertwined realities. Even as she set towering records and moved mountains with her voice, she was judged at every turn by those who could never step into in her shoes.

Although the love never left, the mockery grew louder in her later years as she fell victim to drug abuse before dying in 2012 at age 48 .

“ Didn’t We Almost Have It All ,” a new book by Gerrick Kennedy , seeks to recontextualize Houston‘s life, looking with compassion rather than scorn.

An award-winning journalist who covered music for The Times from 2009 to 2019, Kennedy makes no secret of his love for Houston throughout the book. In the introduction he remembers hearing her honey-soaked voice for the first time, tracing the way it shaped his musical identity while growing up in Cincinnati.

Whitney Houston’s mother gets emotional during Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction

Alicia Keys inducted the late Whitney Houston into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in a ceremony broadcast Saturday. Read some of the poignant speeches.

Nov. 9, 2020

“It was the beauty of her voice, a wonderous marvel unlike anything I’d heard,” he recalled of watching Houston run through the clouds in the 1992 movie “ The Bodyguard ” for the first time. “So light. So pure. So angelic. I never wanted to come back down to earth.”

Kennedy provides a deeper understanding of the human behind the microphone, looking at how family, the music business and impossible expectations weighed down that angelic voice.

Here are seven takeaways from the book, out now from Abrams Press.

12-year-old Brandy sang her way backstage at ‘The Tonight Show’ to wrangle a phone call with Houston

Like many Black girls, the singer Brandy revered Houston. When the faintest opportunity arose to hear her voice, she stopped at nothing to make the dream a reality.

At 12, Brandy attended a taping of the “Tonight Show” that featured BeBe and CeCe Winans as special guests. Even though Houston wasn’t there, Brandy knew she was friends with the Winanses; she sang her way backstage, where she convinced CeCe to call Houston on the phone.

“I couldn’t believe it was her on the other end telling me to have a great summer and sweetly listening as I professed my love of her and my dream to be just like her,” she writes in the book’s foreword.

Four years later, the two were properly introduced at the 1995 Kids’ Choice Awards, where Houston hosted and Brandy performed. Brandy’s mother had told her daughter, “You will see her at the top,” and once it finally happened, Houston gave the prodigy her jacket and hung out with her for the day.

“It was a dream, one of the best days of my life,” she remembered.

Her mother, also a singer, got her break at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival with Mahalia Jackson

Music was in Houston’s blood. Her mother, Cissy Houston (born Emily Drinkard), made her mark through gospel before finding success in soul, funk and R&B.

While singing with her family as part of the Drinkard Sisters, Cissy got her first taste of stardom when she performed at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival. Headlined by gospel legend Mahalia Jackson , the festival put the genre before a largely white audience in all its glory, helping bring it to the mainstream.

Cissy sang with the likes of Elvis Presley, Wilson Pickett and her niece, Dionne Warwick . She later facilitated her daughter’s early work; Whitney earned her first credit at 14 as a background singer on Michael Zager’s “Life’s a Party.”

Kennedy highlights a studio session including Cissy, Aretha Franklin and a young Whitney. “Two magnificently blessed voices ... ,” he writes, “singing freely in front of a little girl who would one day become the voice of her generation.”

‘I Will Always Love You’ almost didn’t happen

It’s impossible to remember Houston without hearing “I Will Always Love You,” which contains one of music’s most famous vocal runs punctuated by an elongated delivery on the hook. The song spent a then-record 14 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100.

As Kennedy writes, it almost didn’t happen.

Houston was originally asked to cover Jimmy Ruffin’s “What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted” for the climax of “The Bodyguard,” but the idea was unpopular internally. It was co-star Kevin Costner who suggested she cover Dolly Parton’s 1974 hit “I Will Always Love You,” with an extended a cappella intro to build the drama.

Clive Davis and producer David Foster thought the arrangement wouldn’t work, but agreed to give it a shot. Foster planned to add more instruments later, but once he saw her singing the song live in a ballroom, he realized he didn’t need to change a thing.

“When she opened her mouth,” Foster later wrote, “I realized that Kevin Costner had come up with one of the greatest ideas in the history of movie music.”

She abandoned her romantic relationship with Robyn Crawford to avoid industry backlash

Before her rise to stardom, Houston was in a relationship with Robyn Crawford .Kennedy writes that it was a powerful love, a bond that formed “almost immediately.”

After she signed a record deal, however, she told Crawford they could be only friends as she feared being ostracized for her sexuality. Houston broke the news to her lover through a slate-blue Bible, a reminder that their love was forbidden by the church.

The two remained good friends, with Crawford serving as Houston’s assistant and later creative director until 2000. Still, questions around her sexuality followed, despite Houston’s denials.

“You mean to tell me that if I have a woman friend, I have to have a lesbian relationship with her?” Whitney told Rolling Stone in a 1993 cover story. “That’s b—.”

The relationship was not officially confirmed until Crawford’s memoir “A Song for You” was released in 2018.

Filmmaker Kevin Macdonald first suspected Houston had been abused after viewing old interview footage

The director of the authorized warts-and-all 2018 documentary “ Whitney ” suspected childhood abuse after rewatching early interviews; the way she “shrank into herself” reminded him of earlier interview subjects who had survived it.

Unflinching Whitney Houston film was the therapy a grieving, damaged family needed

In 1999, Whitney Houston was at the peak of her fame post-“The Bodyguard.”

July 5, 2018

An off-the-record conversation during the final weeks of filming confirmed the director’s suspicions. Macdonald then adjusted the documentary, leading up to the allegation that Whitney and her brother Gary were molested by their cousin Dee Dee Warwick (Dionne’s sister).

In the film, Gary went public about the abuse. Mary Jones, one of Whitney’s close friends, went on camera to say the singer had once told her, through tears, that she was molested at a young age. Cissy, Dionne and Robyn Crawford strongly denied the allegations. Dee Dee died in 2008, 10 years before the film was released.

Houston introduced Bobby Brown to cocaine

Many onlookers suspected Houston’s pairing with Bobby Brown was a transactional relationship rather than true love. Even the way they met seemed too convenient: at the 1989 Soul Train Awards, where Whitney was booed and Bobby made audience members swoon.

Houston was often viewed as a sellout, having “abandoned” her Blackness to become a hit-making machine. As the couple sank deeper into drugs the condemnation went the other way, toward the “bad boy of R&B,” notorious for his outbursts and run-ins with the law.

Although Brown drank and smoked weed, it was Houston who introduced him to cocaine after he caught her doing a line on their wedding day. Houston had her first hit at 14, supplied by a friend of her brother.

“Whitney often said cocaine wouldn’t go where she was going, but there was a deep naivete in thinking she could kick the habit after money and fame made indulging easily accessible — that’s how addiction works,” Kennedy writes.

America wasn’t ready for Whitney Houston

Kennedy argues that Houston didn’t fail her audience; we failed her. Too many fans saw her as a voice instead of a human, discarding her once age, cigarettes and drugs clipped her range.

Kennedy celebrates her voice in its later, lower register. “It was the voice of a woman who had lived — often with wild abandon, as we’d learn after ‘The Bodyguard,’” Kennedy writes. “Whitney always sounded alive .”

Whitney Houston’s best friend reveals a lesbian affair with the singer

Robyn Crawford, Whitney Houston’s best friend for years, says in a new memoir that they had a physical relationship — until the late singer got a record deal.

Nov. 6, 2019

Moreover, society couldn’t accept her for who she was. Questions about her authenticity — her straightness, her Blackness — dogged her even as she soared. “We gossiped about whether she was gay,” Kennedy writes. “We derided her for getting with Bobby — some of you reading this might have even had an office pool going on how long they’d last. We dismissed her music as not ‘Black enough’ for years, and then we chided her for being too ghetto after she dropped the princess act and stopped hiding the Newports.”

We still pry into celebrities today, as we’ve made strides toward acceptance. Artists who don’t identify as straight have more room to be themselves, and those struggling with addiction are met with love rather than treated as a sideshow. Even fame-damaged artists like Britney Spears can use social media to bypass mainstream channels and connect directly with fans.

These new realities inform Kennedy’s ultimate question: What would have happened if Houston were coming up in the 21st century?

The answer, he believes, is that she “would thrive if she arrived now, just as she was. We would have been more appreciative of her artistry. We would have been kinder to her and Robyn. And we would have supported her when the devil on her back pulled her to darkness, instead of shaming her for her choices. The sad truth is we’ll never know.”

More to Read

The biggest takeaways from Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’

March 29, 2024

‘Cowboy Carter’: Country crossover artists laud second act of Beyoncé’s album trilogy

Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ does not feature Taylor Swift, despite Swiftie speculation

Sign up for our Book Club newsletter

Get the latest news, events and more from the Los Angeles Times Book Club, and help us get L.A. reading and talking.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Kenan Draughorne is a former reporter at the Los Angeles Times and was a member of the 2021-22 Los Angeles Times Fellowship class.

More From the Los Angeles Times

System of a Down singer Serj Tankian’s new book details band’s up and downs, and what fuels his activism

May 9, 2024

‘Fallout’ is fun, but the reality of a post-nuclear apocalypse is nightmare fuel

Gavin Newsom is writing a book. Is he hoping to take a page from Obama?

The week’s bestselling books, May 12

May 8, 2024

BlackPast is dedicated to providing a global audience with reliable and accurate information on the history of African America and of people of African ancestry around the world. We aim to promote greater understanding through this knowledge to generate constructive change in our society.

Whitney houston (1964-2012).

Listen while you learn!

Hear a soundtrack specially chosen to enhance your learning about whitney houston (1964-2012).

Let it play in the background as you study and immerse yourself in this topic!

Whitney Houston, singer and actress, sold close to 100 million albums worldwide during her lifetime.  Her recognitions include two Emmy Awards, five Grammy Awards, 19 American Music Awards, five People’s Choice Awards, five Soul Train Awards, and seven NAACP Image Awards.

Houston was born in Newark, New Jersey on August 9, 1963.  Her mother, Cissy Houston, was a nightclub performer and recording artist.  Her father, John, was an aspiring singer who later managed his wife’s career.  Whitney’s extended family and close friends included a number of prominent entertainers.  Dionne Warwick was her first cousin, and Aretha Franklin was her godmother.  She also counted Roberta Flack and Gladys Knight among close family friends.

Houston started singing at age five at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark where her mother was music director.  She performed her first solo in the church when she was eleven.  That performance persuaded both Whitney and her mother that the young soloist should become a professional singer.

As a teen, Whitney was able to fine tune her stage presence when she was allowed to perform on tour with Cissy Houston in the 1970s.  Her parents however encouraged her to stay in school and would not allow her to launch a professional singing career until she graduated from high school in 1981.

In 1985 21-year-old Houston released her first album, Whitney Houston.   It sold 20 million copies worldwide and became the biggest debut album in history at that time. Her single from the album, I Wanna Dance With Somebody (who loves me), entered the charts at number one, the first single by a woman performer to do so. Her 1987 album, Whitney , broke the record for the most consecutive number one singles.

In 1992 Houston starred in her first film The Bodyguard and recorded the soundtrack as well. The film, a love story between a mixed race couple, costarred Kevin Costner who was also the producer.  In 1994 Houston won three Grammy awards for the soundtrack from The Bodyguard.   The following year she costarred in the movie Waiting to Exhale about four African American female friends. She also recorded a hit song Exhale (Shoop Shoop) for that soundtrack. In 1996 Houston costarred with Denzel Washington in The Preacher’s Wife.

Houston married fellow entertainer Bobby Brown in 1992. Their daughter Bobbi Kristina was born in 1993.  The marriage lasted 16 years despite public rumors about discord between the couple, several miscarriages and time both spent in rehab for drug and alcohol related issues. Their turbulent marriage was documented in a reality television show, “Being Bobby Brown,” which aired on the Bravo network during the summer of 2005.

Houston contributed both time and money to charities that support AIDS research, black colleges, and veterans. In 1989 she formed the Whitney Houston Foundation for Children.

Houston was found dead on February 11, 2012 in her Beverly Hills hotel room on the eve of the 2012 Grammy Awards.  The cause is so far undetermined. Her funeral, with many tributes from the entertainment community, was held on February 18, 2012 in the same New Jersey church where she first performed.

Do you find this information helpful? A small donation would help us keep this available to all. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone.

BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. Your donation is fully tax-deductible.

Cite this entry in APA format:

Source of the author's information:.

Ted Cox, Whitney Houston (Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1999); Amy Linton, “The Tentative Return of Whitney Houston: Not a disaster, but not exactly a triumph, either,” Village Voice; 54:37 (September 9, 2009); Whitney Houston Obituary, Los Angeles Times , February 11, 2012, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/02/whitney-houston-died-beverly-hills.html.

Your support is crucial to our mission.

Donate today to help us advance Black history education and foster a more inclusive understanding of our shared cultural heritage.

Smooth Breakfast with Jenni Falconer 6am - 10am

Now Playing

Real Gone Kid Deacon Blue Download 'Real Gone Kid' on iTunes

Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston facts: Singer's age, family, children and husband revealed

22 December 2022, 14:16 | Updated: 22 December 2022, 16:19

Whitney Houston was one of the most iconic singers of all time.

One of the best-selling music artists of all time, Whitney's soulful and powerful performances and ever-presence in the charts of the 1980s and 1990s, cemented her as a true legend.

Starting her singing career in church as a child, she became one of the first black women to appear on the cover of Seventeen magazine, and signed to her first record label aged 19 under the guidance of Clive Davis.

Her first two albums were massive successes, and she went on to score huge hits with the likes of 'Saving All My Love for You', 'I Have Nothing' and 'I Will Always Love You' .

• Whitney Houston's 15 greatest songs ever, ranked

Whitney was also a successful actress, particularly in the romantic thriller The Bodyguard opposite Kevin Costner in 1992.

She is the top-selling R&B female artist of the 20th century, and is one of the most successful artists of all time. She won two Emmy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, 16 Billboard Music Awards and 22 American Music Awards.

Where and when was Whitney Houston born and who were her parents?

Whitney Houston was born on August 9, 1963, in Newark, New Jersey.

She was the daughter of ex-Army serviceman and Newark city administrator John Russell Houston Jr , and gospel singer Emily 'Cissy' Houston .

• Newly surfaced images of "innocent" 18-year-old Whitney Houston's first ever photoshoot

Her older brother Michael is also a songwriter, and her older half-brother is the former basketball player and singer Gary Garland.

Whitney's parents were both African-American, and she is thought to have had Dutch and Native American ancestry.

She was also a first cousin of singers Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick . Her godmother was singer Darlene Love, and her honorary aunt was Aretha Franklin .

Her parents eventually divorced.

How did Whitney Houston get her start in music?

Whitney Houston - Home | Live at The Merv Griffin Show, 1983 (Remastered, 60fps)

When Whitney was still in school, her mother Cissy taught her how to sing. At this point, Cissy was a member of the group Sweet Inspirations, which also sang backup for Elvis Presley .

Spending some of her teenage years touring nightclubs where Cissy was performing, she would occasionally perform with her on stage.

In 1977, aged 14, she was the backup singer on the Michael Zager Band's single 'Life's a Party'.

• When Whitney Houston sang the national anthem so powerfully she moved a nation to tears

In the early 1980s, Whitney began working as a fashion model after a photographer saw her at Carnegie Hall, becoming a highly sought-after young model.

In 1983, Gerry Griffith, an A&R representative from Arista Records, saw Whitney performing with her mother in New York. He told Arista's head Clive Davis to see her perform.

Impressed, he immediately offered her a record deal, which she eventually signed. Later that year, she made her TV debut alongside Davis on The Merv Griffin Show .

When did Whitney Houston pass away?

Kevin Costner´s emotional speech in full at Whitney Houston´s funeral

On February 9, 2012, Whitney visited singers Brandy and Monica, alongside Clive Davis, at their rehearsals for Clive's pre-Grammy Awards party at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.

That day, she made her last public performance, joining Kelly Price on stage in Hollywood, California, singing 'Jesus Loves Me'.

Two days later, on February 11, Whitney was found unconscious in her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, in the bath.

• Kevin Costner's beautiful relationship with "one true love" Whitney Houston revealed

The cause of death was not known at first. On March 22, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office reported that her death was caused by drowning and the "effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use".

The manner of death was listed as an "accident".

A memorial service was held for Whitney on February 18, 2012, at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. Among those who performed at the funeral included Stevie Wonder , CeCe Winans, Alicia Keys and R Kelly.

Who was Whitney Houston's husband?

In the 1980s, Whitney was romantically linked to stars including Jermaine Jackson , American football star Randall Cunningham and actor Eddie Murphy.

She met R&B singer Bobby Brown at the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards. After three years, the couple married on July 18, 1992.

• Who is Robyn Crawford? Whitney Houston's assistant and former girlfriend speaks of secret relationship
• Bobby Brown facts: Singer and Whitney Houston husband's age, children, songs and more revealed

During their marriage, Whitney and Bobby had several periods of troubles, including infidelity, domestic violence, and drug use. In 2003, Bobby was charged with battery after an altercation with Whitney.

In 2006, Whitney filed for divorce, which was finalized in April 2007.

Did Whitney Houston have any children?

Whitney and Bobby had one child together. Bobbi Kristina Brown was born March 4, 1993.

Bobbi Kristina became a reality television star and singer. She was 14 when her parents divorced and Whitney gained custody.

In January 2015, she was tragically found unconscious in a bath in her home. After being in a coma for nearly six months, she died on July 26, 2015, aged 22.

Her partner Nick Gordon was later found responsible in a wrongful death lawsuit and ordered to pay $36 million to her estate.

More from Whitney Houston

See more More from Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston's 15 greatest songs of all time, ranked

George michael tops smooth's all time top 500 for the seventh time, the story of... 'i will always love you' by dolly parton and whitney houston, the 100 greatest movie songs of all time, ranked, the greatest oscars music performances of all time, ranked, latest music news.

See more Latest Music News

Olly Alexander responds after being awarded zero points in Eurovision public vote

Barry gibb reveals the secret behind his long marriage to "special" wife linda, did abba appear at eurovision for the 50th anniversary of 'waterloo', abba's 20 greatest ever songs, ranked, eurovision 2024 running order: when is each act performing in the grand final, smooth playlists, smooth's all time top 500, smooth soul, smooth country hot hits, smooth chill concentration, smooth podcast picks, they don't teach this at school with myleene klass, take that: this life, runpod with jenni falconer, the news agents.

Get to Know Whitney Houston

WATCH OWN APP

Download the Watch OWN app and access OWN anytime, anywhere. Watch full episodes and live stream OWN whenever and wherever you want. The Watch OWN app is free and available to you as part of your OWN subscription through a participating TV provider.

NEWSLETTERS

SIGN UP FOR NEWSLETTERS TODAY AND ENJOY THE BENEFITS.

• Stay up to date with the latest trends that matter to you most.
• Have top-notch advice and tips delivered directly to you.
• Be in the know on current and upcoming trends.

OPRAH IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF HARPO, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2024 HARPO PRODUCTIONS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. OWN: OPRAH WINFREY NETWORK

Whitney Houston, US singer and actress, dies aged 48

• Published 12 February 2012
• comments Comments

The cause of Ms Houston's death is not clear

American singer and actress Whitney Houston has died in Los Angeles at the age of 48.

Police said she died in her room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where she had been staying as a guest.

Houston was one of the most celebrated female singers of all time, with hits including I Will Always Love You and Saving All My Love For You.

But her later career was overshadowed by substance abuse and her turbulent marriage to singer Bobby Brown.

Ms Houston died on the eve of the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. She had been due to attend a pre-awards party in the Beverly Hilton Hotel organised by her long-time mentor and record industry executive Clive Davis on Saturday evening.

He went ahead with the party, holding a minute's silence and telling the audience he was "personally devastated by the loss of someone who has meant so much to me for so many years".

Jazz legend Herbie Hancock, who was attending the event, said: "It's difficult not to be sad about it because it's a great loss. Her soul, her spirit, lives within all of us."

The hotel was already teeming with reporters and celebrities when police received an emergency call from hotel security at 15.43 local time (23:43 GMT), Beverly Hills police spokesman Mark Rosen told the BBC.

Police were despatched, but paramedics who were already at the hotel because of the party attempted to resuscitate her, without success. She was pronounced dead at 15:55.

Mr Rosen said Ms Houston's entourage - comprising family members, friends and co-workers - had taken over much of the fourth floor of the hotel.

"There were a number of people on scene who were able to positively identify Ms Houston for us," he said, adding that her next of kin have been informed of her death.

Police investigators inspected the scene before Ms Houston's body was moved from the hotel to the coroner's office for an autopsy.

While the cause of death is unclear, Mr Rosen said there were "no obvious signs of criminal intent".

An autopsy is likely to be held within the next two days. However, if drugs or alcohol are involved, it will take between six and eight weeks for toxicology tests to be completed.

The US celebrity website <link> <caption>TMZ.com</caption> <url href="http://www.tmz.com/" platform="highweb"/> </link> reported that Ms Houston had been partying heavily on both Thursday and Friday nights.

She briefly took the microphone and performed a song while out in Hollywood on Thursday, and was seen drinking and chatting loudly with friends in the hotel bar on Friday, according to TMZ.

'Finest voice'

Houston's background was steeped in soul and gospel music.

Whitney Houston had been partying heavily at a pre-Grammy party on Thursday night

Her mother was gospel singer Cissy Houston, she was cousin to singer Dionne Warwick and goddaughter to Aretha Franklin.

"I just can't talk about it now," Ms Franklin said in a short statement. "It's so stunning and unbelievable. I couldn't believe what I was reading coming across the TV screen."

Having grown up in New Jersey, Houston began singing in church and then in the night clubs of New York, and was a model before being signed by Arista Records.

At the height of her career in the 1980s and 90s she won many awards and enjoyed several number one singles and albums.

Artists from Mariah Carey to Christina Aguilera have tried to emulate her bravura performances, but none of them were as good as the original, music critic Paul Gambaccini told the BBC.

Carey was one of the many singers to pay tribute to the star, saying she was "heartbroken and in tears over the shocking death of my friend".

"My heartfelt condolences to Whitney's family and to all her millions of fans throughout the world. She will never be forgotten as one of the greatest voices to ever grace the earth."

Houston also enjoyed success acting in blockbuster films such as The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale.

Sony Pictures announced on Sunday that it would release the star's final film, Sparkle, which is loosely based on the story of The Supremes, in August.

"Like all those who knew and loved her, we are shocked and saddened," said spokesman Steve Elzer said on behalf of the studio. "The world has lost an incomparable talent."

In recent years drug use had taken its toll on the star and her voice - once acknowledged as one of the finest in pop music - was badly damaged.

"She did have it all, but the record is there of the decline into drug use and the damage done from drug use," said Gambaccini.

Her marriage to Brown, with whom she had a daughter, Bobbi Kristina, ended in divorce in 2007. The marriage had been a tempestuous one, with allegations of domestic abuse as well as drug addiction.

"The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy,'' Houston told ABC's Diane Sawyer in a 2002 interview.

Ms Houston was strongly linked to the Grammys - having won six awards herself over the years. Organisers of Sunday's ceremony said she would be remembered in a special tribute by singer Jennifer Hudson.

Civil rights activist Rev Al Sharpton said that on the morning of the Grammys, "the world should pause and pray for the memory of a gifted songbird".

Country singer Dolly Parton - who wrote one one of her most memorable hits, I Will Always Love You - said in a statement: "Mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston."

"I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, 'Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed'."

Comments can not be loaded

To load Comments you need to enable JavaScript in your browser

• Entertainment
• Fact-Checking the New Whitney Houston Biopic <i>I Wanna Dance With Somebody</i>

Fact-Checking the New Whitney Houston Biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody

I n the years since her death in 2012 , the life and legacy of Whitney Houston have invoked an almost obsessive curiosity about the real person behind the larger-than-life persona of one of the world’s most talented musical artists. Her undeniable gift and glittering career catapulted her to fame, but it’s been the details of her personal life—her complicated relationship with her parents, her sexuality, her forays into marriage and parenthood, her struggles with substance abuse—that have been the focus of the many narratives, documentaries, and series about the six-time Grammy winner.

Both Houston’s outsized career and her complex interior life take center stage in Kasi Lemmons ’ I Wanna Dance With Somebody , a biopic about the singer which releases on Dec. 23. While other projects about Houston have had a morbid , sometimes exploitative fascination with the struggles and tragedy of her life, the film takes care with the story of Whitney (Naomi Ackie), imbuing her life both on and off the stage with nuance in an effort to offer an authentic re-telling. This may be due in part to the involvement of Clive Davis, the record producer and Whitney’s mentor, who served as an executive producer on the film, with the blessing of Pat Houston, her sister-in-law and the administrator of her estate. That’s not to say that the film doesn’t take some creative liberties, however. Below, we’ve done a fact check of some of the major points of I Wanna Dance With Somebody.

Was Houston discovered by Clive Davis while singing back-up for her mother in a club?

Early in the film, Houston is discovered by Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci), who, at the urging of A&R Gerry Griffith, watches her perform at the Manhattan nightclub Sweetwater’s, where she’s singing backup for her mother, Cissy Houston (Tamara Tunie). Upon seeing Davis in the audience, the elder Houston feigns throat trouble and urges her daughter to sing lead, including the song, “The Greatest Love of All,” impressing Davis so much that he later offers her a record deal.

This scenario aligns mostly with reality; in an interview for Conversations With Whitney Houston and Clive Davis , Davis divulged that the first time he saw Houston sing was at Sweetwater’s, where she was singing backup for her mother, but performed two solo songs, one of which was “The Greatest Love of All.”

“It was sung with such verve, such natural vocal gifts, with such passion that I was stunned,” he said. “I knew right then and there that this was a very special talent.” Davis signed a 19-year-old Houston to a record deal in 1983, beginning a musical partnership what would last 29 years, until her death in 2012.

Read more: ‘Anything Good in This Country Has Had to Be Wrestled Free.’ What Whitney Houston’s Rendition of the National Anthem Taught Me About America

What was Houston’s relationship to Robyn Crawford?

In the film, one of Houston’s most important relationships begins when she meets Robyn Crawford (played by Nafessa Williams) at a community center as a high school student. The two develop a deep friendship, which takes a romantic turn and leads to them moving in together. While the love between Crawford and Houston is real, disapproval from Whitney’s family, particularly her father, takes a toll on their relationship. Likewise, as Houston’s singing career begins to gain momentum, pressure begins to mount to keep their relationship secret to protect Houston’s public image as a pop princess.

After Houston has a brief fling with Jermaine Jackson, she insinuates to Crawford that because she wants a family in the future, she will ultimately end up in a straight relationship. While their romantic interlude ends early on in Houston’s career, Crawford becomes her assistant and creative director. Later, when Houston pursues a relationship with Bobby Brown, in a seeming effort to quell rumors about her sexuality, as well as critiques of her not being “Black enough,” it strains her friendship with Crawford, who has ongoing tensions with Brown. Things finally come to a head when Crawford unsuccessfully tries to have an intervention for Houston’s substance abuse issue, leading her to break ties with the singer.

In real life, Crawford and Houston really did meet at a community center in East Orange, N.J. in 1980 when the singer was in high school and Crawford, a basketball player, was home from college. They became fast friends, striking up a deep connection that would last two decades. While there was always speculation about the nature of their relationship, it wasn’t confirmed by Crawford until she wrote her 2019 memoir, A Song For You: My Life With Whitney Houston ; in the book, Crawford details how they shared their first kiss weeks after meeting and soon became physically intimate, although it was their immediate emotional connection that she remembered most about that time:

You could tell Whitney and I were tight. It wasn’t all about our sleeping together. We could be naked. We could be bare and didn’t have to hide. We could trust each other with our secrets, our feelings, and who we were. We were friends. We were lovers. We were everything to each other. We weren’t falling in love. We just were. We had each other. We were one: That’s how it felt…We never talked labels, like lesbian or gay. We just lived our lives, and I hoped it could go on that way forever.

According to Crawford, her and Houston’s romantic relationship was discouraged by Houston’s parents and disparaged by Houston herself; Brown alleged in his 2016 memoir, Every Little Step , that both the Houston family and Clive Davis disapproved of even the suggestion of a relationship between Houston and Crawford: “They couldn’t let Whitney live the life she wanted to live; they insisted that she be perfect, that she be someone she wasn’t,” he wrote. “That’s why they wanted Robyn out.”

It was a sentiment that he echoed in an interview from the same year with Us Weekly, noting that the pressure on Houston to appear a certain way played a role in her decline: “I really feel that if Robyn was accepted into Whitney’s life, Whitney would still be alive today,” he said. “She didn’t have close friends with her anymore.”

As in the film, Crawford and Houston lived together, but in real life, during this time, they were just roommates, sharing space platonically in Woodbridge, N.J. In addition to being her closest friend, Crawford was also her assistant, before becoming her creative director. However, as Houston began dating high-profile men like Jermaine Jackson, Eddie Murphy, and eventually her future husband Brown, Crawford shared that it was hard to reckon with the changing nature of their relationship.

“The physical part of our friendship was no longer, but the intimacy…our friendship was intimate on all levels, that’s how deep it was,” she wrote . “I wanted her to call me and say, ‘Guess what, this is happening [with Jermaine].’ And she wasn’t doing that, and that hurt more than anything. It didn’t feel like she was cheating on me—it felt more like she was leaving me out.”

In a 2019 Essence interview, Crawford addressed the rumored tensions between her and Brown, admitting that she was often annoyed by him and his antics, as well as his jealousy of her close relationship with Houston; after Brown and Houston married, her relationship with the singer deteriorated due to Houston’s tumultuous marriage and drug use. By 2000, eight years after Houston got married, Crawford had reached her breaking point professionally with the singer, resigning as her creative director. The end of their professional relationship also led to distance in their friendship, with no real reunion between the two before Houston’s death.

Did she push back at the suggestion she wasn’t “Black enough” in a radio interview?

A particularly loaded moment in the film takes place when a radio host asks Houston how she would respond to critiques that she didn’t act or sing “Black enough” as the reigning pop star of her generation. In response, Houston shuts down her naysayers: “That’s just bull,” she says in the movie. “And it makes me angry, actually. It’s hateful and uninformed. My whole life, ‘She ain’t Black enough, she ain’t white enough.’ Music is not a color to me. It has no boundaries. I sing what I want to sing, be how I want to be, and reach as big an audience I can.”

While this specific situation does not appear to have happened in real life, many scenarios like it happened to Houston early on in her career, especially because her music had a distinctly pop sound that differed from the soul and R&B sound that many people associated with Black artists, including her mother and her first cousin, Dionne Warwick. While Houston was one of the first Black female artists to successfully conquer the white mainstream market, appealing to a broader audience came at a cost. Houston’s racial identity and how she performed it was under constant scrutiny, from both Black and non-Black music fans, with some Black critics questioning whether she was “Black enough.” The Rev. Al Sharpton notoriously dubbed her “Whiteny Houston,” while some Black radio stations and DJs refused to play her pop-infused records. As depicted in the movie, one of the most noteworthy example of the immense pressure that she faced in real life was the 1988 and 1989 Soul Train Awards, where she was booed by the audience .

Houston addressed the jeers in a 1991 interview with Ebony : “[Some people in the audience] had just gotten sick of me and just didn’t want me to win another award,” she said. “No, it does not make you feel good. I don’t like it and I don’t appreciate it, but I just kind of write it off as ignorance.” She elaborated on her feelings about the critiques of her musical style and its place in the cultural landscape in a 1996 interview with Katie Couric : “You’re not Black enough for them,” she explained to Katie Couric in a 1996 interview. “You’re not R&B enough. You’re very pop. The white audience has taken you away from them.”

Was it really Kevin Costner who suggested she sing “I Will Always Love You” for The Bodyguard ?

In I Wanna Dance With Somebody , Davis appears on the set of The Bodyguard with a Walkman loaded with Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” for Houston to consider for the film’s soundtrack, citing that her co-star Kevin Costner suggested it. In real life, Costner really was the driving force behind Houston covering “I Will Always Love You.”

While she was originally set to record a cover of Jimmy Ruffin’s “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” for the soundtrack’s lead single, after discovering that the song would be featured prominently in Fried Green Tomatoes , Houston went on a search for a new song. During an interview in 2011 for CMT’s 40 Greatest Love Songs , Parton, who originally wrote the song in 1973 after dissolving her professional partnership with her mentor Porter Wagoner, said that Costner and his secretary were fans of the song and were the ones who reached out to her about using it.

“Kevin Costner and his secretary are the ones that loved the song,” Parton said. “They had another song that was going to go in that place, and someone had recorded the song they were going to use. They were just in a panic at the last minute. And so they asked me about the song. I sent it. I didn’t hear anything more.”

In the movie, Houston immediately takes to the song. In real life, Costner had to work hard to persuade Houston and Davis that covering “I Will Always Love You” was a good idea. In a 2008 interview with CMT.com , Costner revealed that it was a tough sell to Davis and other Arista executives.

“When I said to Whitney, ‘You’re gonna sing “I Will Always Love You,”’ the ground shook,” Costner said. “Clive Davis and those guys were going, ‘What?!’ I said, ‘This is a very important song in this movie.’ I didn’t care if it was ever on the radio. I didn’t care.” While the original country version by Parton didn’t compel Whitney to think the song could be a hit, another listen with a 1975 cover by Linda Ronstadt convinced her.

Costner was also responsible for one of the most memorable stylings of Houston’s soulful 1992 arrangement of the song: the a capella intro.

“I said, ‘We’re also going to do this a cappella at the beginning,” Costner told CMT.com . “I need it to be a cappella because it shows a measure of how much she digs this guy—that she sings without music.'”

The Bodyguard soundtrack still holds the record for being the no. 1 best-selling movie soundtrack of all time, making it into the Guinness Book of World Records and selling 45 million copies around the world. The track later went on to become diamond certified and has become one of the most popular and beloved songs in Houston’s discography.

Read more: 4 Things We Learned From the New Documentary About Whitney Houston

What was the significance of Houston’s concerts in South Africa?

In a scene from the film, Houston performs in front of an adoring audience in Johannesburg, South Africa to celebrate the election of Nelson Mandela; the reception is a marked contrast to the attitudes toward her in the U.S., where a few years earlier, she was critiqued by music fans as pandering to white audiences.

While it’s hard to say if the reality of the audience reception was as stark a contrast as the film depicts, her 1994 performance was a momentous one. She was the first international star to perform in post-apartheid South Africa, after the presidential election of Mandela, which she commemorated with a three-night concert series in honor of the president; all proceeds from the concerts went to South African charities, including children’s museums, the President’s Trust Fund, the Kagiso Foundation, and various orphanages.

Did Whitney’s father mismanage her finances, leading to estrangement?

In one of the most sobering moments in I Wanna Dance With Somebody , Houston discovers that her father, John, has been mismanaging her funds, leading to her breaking ties with him both professionally and personally, while he’s sick in the hospital. While there’s no way of confirming that her father, a talent manager who managed the career of her mother, Cissy, before managing her own career, was mismanaging her earnings, Houston’s company was sued by her father’s company, John Houston Entertainment, in 2002 for $100 million for breach of contract . The suit, which sought compensation for helping to get a 2000 marijuana charge against her dismissed and for securing her a new record contract, was thrown out by a N.J. judge in 2004 , but resulted in public tension between father and daughter that continued until John’s death in 2003.

Their conflict came to a head after Houston’s infamous 2002 Primetime interview with Diane Sawyer when she shared that she was deeply hurt by her father’s suit against her and claimed that she had never hired them.

“It hurts. They’ll never get $100 million out of me. I know that,” she said, adding later: “The bad part about it is that it’s about money, and that really sucks. That hurts more than anything.”

A day after the Primetime interview aired, John responded with an on-air interview of his own on the syndicated TV show, Celebrity Justice , where he demanded that Houston “pay me the money that you owe me,” from a hospital bed.

“You get your act together, honey, and you pay me the money that you owe me,” he said. “If you do that, you haven’t got a lawsuit…At my age, I haven’t got that long. Now if you think I got that long, you think about it. You step into my shoes. I would like to spend the last years of my life on a boat some place.”

When John died in 2003, it was reported that Houston did not attend the funeral (as in the movie), but she addressed the rumors during a 2009 interview with Oprah, stating that she had a private memorial the day before so she could grieve privately. (The film, on the other hand, depicts her as too strung out to attend.) During the interview, she also shared that she had forgiven him for the lawsuit and their differences.

“I love my dad, and I knew he was sickly. People were trying to get money from him. Distract me from him,” she said. “There were years we didn’t speak at all, but when he got sickly, I went to the hospital and I said, ‘let’s end this right now.’”

More Must-Reads From TIME

• What Student Photojournalists Saw at the Campus Protests
• Women Say They Were Pressured Into Long-Term Birth Control
• How Far Trump Would Go
• Scientists Are Finding Out Just How Toxic Your Stuff Is
• Boredom Makes Us Human
• John Mulaney Has What Late Night Needs
• The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Write to Cady Lang at [email protected]

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Manage Your Subscription
• Give a Gift Subscription
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes
• Entertainment

Whitney Houston's Death: The Details Behind Her Sudden Passing

Whitney Houston was just 48 years old when she died at a Beverly Hills hotel in February 2012

Jacqueline Weiss is a contributing writer at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2022. Her work has previously appeared in Food & Wine, Insider and Apartment Therapy.

Whitney Houston 's unmistakable voice and career left a major impact on the music industry, which she exited suddenly and tragically.

The singer died on Feb. 11, 2012, the day before the Grammy Awards , when she accidentally drowned in a hotel room. She left behind daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown , who would die three years later at the age of 22.

Houston was known as "The Voice" for her powerful vocal talents that continued to win accolades even after her death, but by the end of her life, she was also well-known for her lengthy battle with drug addiction and her personal life behind-the-scenes.

The music icon's legacy was immortalized in the 2022 biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody . At the time the movie was released, actress Naomi Ackle, who played Houston, told PEOPLE that she hoped the singer would have been happy with the way she was portrayed.

"I would hope she would be like, 'OK, Nai, you did a thing!' " Ackle said. "Also, she might have loads of notes and I'd just be like, 'Great — let's do another one. Direct me and we can do it again.' "

Director Kassi Lemmons said that her goal was to "capture the humanity" of Houston, adding, "I think she would be cool with it, and I think she would want the story told. She would want her humanness told, that she was not just a performer, but she was a mother and she was a daughter and she was a sister and she was a friend and she was a lover and a wife."

Here are all the details of her sudden passing, as well as the legacy she left behind.

How did Whitney Houston die?

Houston's death was ruled as an accidental drowning with contributing factors of heart disease and cocaine use, according to the 42-page coroner's report .

The toxicology report found that "cocaine and metabolites" contributed to her passing. Other substances found in her body included marijuana, Xanax (anti-anxiety medication), Benadryl (allergy medication) and Flexeril (muscle relaxer), but they did not contribute to her death.

" There was water found in her lungs that indicated to us that she was alive when she was submerged underwater," Los Angeles County chief coroner Craig Harvey told PEOPLE at the time. "According to our tests, the level of cocaine was not necessarily a lethal level of cocaine. But her death was complicated by chronic cocaine use and heart disease."

Coroner assistant chief Ed Winter shared with PEOPLE two potential scenarios about the circumstances of her death: "She could've passed out first due to the intoxication from the cocaine, or she could've had a heart attack and then drowned. It's probably one of those two scenarios."

When did Whitney Houston die?

Houston died on Feb. 11, 2012. Her official time of death was at 3:55 p.m.

Where did Whitney Houston die?

Houston was found unresponsive and submerged in her bathtub inside Suite 434 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.

The singer was seemingly fine when speaking with her mother, Cissy Houston, at 3:15 p.m. Less than 30 minutes later, hotel security was called at 3:43 p.m. when the singer was found unresponsive in the bathtub by her assistant. Police officers arrived in her suite two minutes later, as they were already at the hotel in preparation for Clive Davis ' pre- Grammy Awards party that evening. Officials attempted CPR on Houston before she was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m.

How old was Whitney Houston when she died?

The singer was 48 years old at the time of her passing.

What were Whitney Houston's last words?

Houston spoke on the phone with her mother around 3:15 p.m. on February 11, just 40 minutes before she was pronounced dead in her hotel room. The nature of their phone call has not been revealed by Cissy Houston, but she said her daughter seemed to be fine.

Two days before her death on February 9, Houston visited singers Brandy and Monica with Clive Davis during their rehearsals for the music executive's party on February 11. Later that day, Houston made her last public performance singing "Jesus Loves Me" on stage with Kelly Price in Hollywood at a pre-Grammys party.

How did the public react to Whitney Houston's death?

Both the public and lovers of her music worldwide were devastated by her passing. When news broke of the singer's death, it made the front page of newspapers and was widely covered.

Davis, Houston's friend and mentor, still hosted his pre-Grammy party in the Beverly Hilton hotel on the evening of Feb. 11, despite the singer's body remaining inside the building until 12:45 a.m. At the start of the event, he shared a tribute to Houston: "By now you have all learned of the unspeakably tragic news of our beloved Whitney's passing. I don't have to mask my emotion in front of a room full of so many dear friends."

The Grammy Award winner continued, "I am personally devastated by the loss of someone who has meant so much to me for so many years. Whitney was so full of life. She was so looking forward to tonight even though she wasn't scheduled to perform. Whitney was a beautiful person and a talent beyond compare. She graced this stage with her regal presence and gave so many memorable performances here over the years. Simply put, Whitney would have wanted the music to go on and her family asked that we carry on."

In the days after Houston's death, dozens of her friends and colleagues shared tributes to the late singer . "She will never be forgotten as one of the greatest voices to ever grace the earth," wrote Mariah Carey on Twitter.

"To me Whitney was THE VOICE. We got to hear a part of God every time she sang. Heart is heavy, spirit grateful for the GIFT of her," said Oprah Winfrey . Other stars that shared messages of support included Tony Bennett , Smokey Robinson , Toni Braxton and more.

The singer's funeral was held on Feb. 19 in Newark, N.J., where she performed as a child in the choir. The services included performances from several notables names, including Alicia Keys , who sang an emotional rendition of "Send Me An Angel," and Stevie Wonder , who told mourners he "had a little crush on Whitney" before singing one of her favorite songs, "Ribbon in the Sky."

What legacy did Whitney Houston leave behind?

Even a decade after her passing, Houston is widely regarded as one of the greatest singers of all time. Her influence on the music industry and overall culture is undeniable — as one of the best-selling musical artists ever, she continues to inspire movies and documentaries, posthumous music releases and charitable work.

Related Articles

• Manage Account

Whitney Houston

Chart history, billboard hot 100™, i will always love you, my love is your love, heartbreak hotel, the star spangled banner, how will i know, latest videos.

XG’s Billboard Cover, Mitski’s 2nd No. 1 on TikTok Billboard Top 50 & More | Billboard News

Billboard reveals the top 10 of the best 500 pop songs of all time (staff list) | billboard news, clive davis gives us the inside scoop on his famous party & talks whitney houston bio-pic | billboard power 100 party 2023, billboard explains: youtube’s billion views club, music documentaries to watch: selena gomez, demi lovato, beyoncé, amy winehouse & more | billboard news, whitney houston’s iconic star spangled banner super bowl performance | black history month, will smith and his mom celebrate her 85th birthday with a whitney houston dance party | billboard news, rock & roll hall of fame unveil class of 2020 | billboard news, kygo & whitney houston land on pop songs airplay chart with “higher love” | billboard news, first dates announced for whitney houston hologram tour | billboard news, latest news, here are all the hits that have debuted at no. 1 on the hot 100.

• By Billboard Staff

The Albums With the Most Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 Hits

• By Trevor Anderson
• May 2, 2024 3:00 pm

What American Idol ’s Rock Hall-Themed Episode Says About the Current State of Music on TV: Critic’s Take

• By Paul Grein
• Apr 22, 2024 1:12 pm

‘American Idol’: Julia Gagnon Impresses With Cover of Whitney Houston’s ‘Run To You’

• By Lars Brandle
• Apr 22, 2024 5:42 am

It’s Not About the Equity, Baby: Griping About Private Equity Buying Music Catalogs Misses the Point

• By Robert Levine
• Mar 20, 2024 2:34 pm

Zendaya and Tom Holland Couldn’t Resist Singing Along to Whitney Houston Classic at Tennis Match

• By Gil Kaufman
• Mar 18, 2024 7:39 am

Offset Recalls Meeting ‘Nice, Sweet Soul’ Whitney Houston & Dancing in One of Her Videos

• By Michael Saponara
• Mar 8, 2024 1:49 pm

The Top 75 Movie Songs of All Time

• By Dan Reilly , Danielle Pascual , Joe Lynch , Paul Grein
• Mar 6, 2024 3:46 pm

Whitney Houston Movie Producers Never Paid For Songs, Sony Music Claims in New Lawsuit

• By Bill Donahue
• Feb 16, 2024 11:11 am

Beyoncé’s ‘Daddy Lessons’ Up 370% in Streams Following Reveal of Her New Country Era

• By Kyle Denis , Jason Lipshutz , Andrew Unterberger
• Feb 14, 2024 4:18 pm

Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Billboard Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

optional screen reader

Charts expand charts menu.

• Billboard Hot 100™
• Billboard 200™
• Hits Of The World™
• TikTok Billboard Top 50
• Song Breaker
• Year-End Charts
• Decade-End Charts

Music Expand music menu

• R&B/Hip-Hop

Videos Expand videos menu

Culture expand culture menu, media expand media menu, business expand business menu.

• Business News
• Record Labels
• View All Pro

Pro Tools Expand pro-tools menu

• Songwriters & Producers
• Artist Index
• Royalty Calculator
• Market Watch
• Industry Events Calendar

Billboard Español Expand billboard-espanol menu

• Cultura y Entretenimiento

Get Up Anthems by Tres Expand get-up-anthems-by-tres menu

Honda music expand honda-music menu.