| Photo credit: AP |
The six-time Grammy award-winning pop music superstar was found dead in her Beverly Hills hotel room on Saturday afternoon. Authorities are investigating her cause of death and at this point, we can only speculate.
But that didn't stop online trollers from weighing in with their opinions, many of them critical of Brown. Houston married Brown in 1992, but the pair split up and had divorced by 2007.
“I will always love Whitney. I will always loathe Bobby Brown,” someone wrote on Facebook.
“Bobby Brown you took our diva and turned her into an addict,” another vented.
The Rush to Blame
I'm not one to eulogize anyone, but I also believe in personal responsibility. I know, love and have dealt with enough drug addicts to know that addiction is a complicated disease. Very complicated. Very few drug addicts can say that someone held a gun to their heads and made them hit that crack pipe for the first time, pop pills, sip alcohol or use whatever is the drug of their choice.
Can a person influence you? Of course, for good and bad. It's easy and convenient to point fingers, but we only have ourselves to blame. We are in control of our own actions -- not someone else. Any therapist worth their psychology license will tell you that.
The problem lied with Brown's and Houston's images: Houston's was squeaky clean, a gospel singer raised in the church, turned pop music diva who could do wrong. She came from music royalty: Her mother is gospel star Cissy Houston, Aretha Franklin is her godmother and Dionne Warwick is her aunt.
Meanwhile, as Whitney's music star shone bright, Brown, a member of New Edition, had a starkly different image: He was the bad boy, and many blamed him for corrupting Whitney's pristine image and for her downfall.
We always want to blame someone, something, for bad news. Somehow, I suspect that we didn't really know either of them; we only knew what the music industry wanted us to see. It's no secret that their marriage was tumultuous.
In 1993, Whitney said this during an interview to Rolling Stone -- perhaps an eerie precursor to their troubled marriage:
"When you love, you love. I mean, do you stop loving somebody because you have different images? You know, Bobby and I basically come from the same place," she told Rolling Stone in 1993. "You see somebody, and you deal with their image, that's their image. It's part of them, it's not the whole picture. I am not always in a sequined gown. I am nobody's angel. I can get down and dirty. I can get raunchy."
Am I giving Bobby a pass? By no means. It's pretty well documented that there were at least threats of domestic abuse in the Houston/Brown marriage.
The Voice of An Angel
Backed by music mogul Clive Davis, she was the first Black pop music star to cross over, making a splash onto the music scene in 1985 with her self titled "Whitney Houston" album that showcased her effortless, powerful voice with amazing range.
She was the music industry's golden girl in the 80s and much of the 90s, and everything she touched turned to GOLD.
The hits followed, among them, "Saving All My Love for You," "How Will I Know?" ''You Give Good Love" and "The Greatest Love of All." Movies soon followed, among them "The Bodyguard" and "Waiting to Exhale" and the "Preacher's Wife."
A Natural Hair Role Model of the 1980s
Folks idolized her, especially in the Black community. She was who us Black girls in the 1980s looked up to. And I'll never forget her first album, the picture of a beautiful brown girl with short natural hair. We had never seen anything like it. At that time, in the wig, weaved and Jherri Curl world of the 1980s, it meant something.
She was tall, elegant and regal. A real-life queen that could SANG.
| "Whitney Houston" self-titled debut album in 1985 |
Others tried, but very few Black musicians managed to woo both white and Black audiences like Houston. Everyone else would follow in her footsteps. She set the bar impossibly high, influencing generations of singers and musicians.
By the time American Idol became part of our lexicon, Houston had largely faded from the spotlight, but her songs didn't. It is Houston's voice -- and songs -- that American Idol hopefuls still struggle to emulate even today. Even now, very, very few singers can reach those notes that Houston could, almost without breaking a sweat.
Did We See This Coming?
The music industry is a very complicated, schizophrenic thing. It builds musicians up to tear them down. All well knowing that the intoxicating smell of fame, the allure of money and celebrity is enough to make us forget who we really are, what we really stand for.
Did Whitney and Bobby have problems? Of course -- all of that ugliness was captured in tabloids, in the news with domestic abuse charges against Brown and even on their ill-fated reality show, "Being Bobby Brown," in 2005. It featured a rambling, bumbling and sometimes incoherent Houston.
But I can't place the blame for her death squarely on his shoulders. They might have been a marijuna toking, crack pipe blowing couple, but were both co-dependent on each other. They seemingly brought out the worst in each other.
Am I giving Bobby a pass? By no means. It's pretty well documented that domestic violence did exist in their marriage, with charges by Houston that Brown threatened to abuse her. Is this a bash Bobby Brown blog? No. I'm sure that, in death, a lot of ex-husbands would have their regrets about their late ex-wife and their troubled relationship.
Still, deep down, the "Whitney Houston has died" news story is one that no one wanted to see. But we all knew it could happen, considering her widely publicized drug abuse problems, including that infamous and parodied, "Crack is whack" interview with Diane Sawyer in 2002 and her multiple rehab attempts.
The Music Comeback That Never Came
And so we braced ourselves, hoping that incorrect reports of Houston's death in the early 2000s, after an appearance in which she was suprisingly thin, would never come true.
We waited patiently for her comeback. An appearance on Good Morning America was a disaster. An overseas tour flopped after fans walked out mid-concert complaining that THE voice was no longer, ravaged by years of drug use. In 2011, she filmed Sparkle and was to film the sequel to Waiting to Exhale. We always love the underdog and a comeback story. And we all looked forward to her possibly performing at the Grammy Awards today.
We just knew that we'd have Whitney back -- the old Whitney. The one whose rich, soaring voice made your spine tingle, pat your feet, and try your best to sing like her in the shower, even though you knew you couldn't.
We just didn't expect her death on Saturday.
The Death of a Music Superstar
Music legends die tragic deaths. Unfortunately, it just seems like what they do -- and Whitney Houston is no exception. Music, money and drugs are dangerous and seductive. Add the glimmer and glitz of celebrity, and it becomes a train wreck, playing out for all to see.
Only now, add Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TMZ to the list.
Houston was a real person, with real flaws, just like anyone else. What's not debatable is this: Her voice will go down in history as one of the greatest. And 50 years from now, we'll still be talking about her.
Houston was a real person, with flaws. We can be real about the issues Houston faced, yet not mock her in death. Many of those tweet and Facebook status updates probably won't be discussed at Houston's upcoming eulogy. Though we do need to address the issue of addiction.
Your choice: Blame Bobby or don't blame him for her tragic death.
At this point, it doesn't really matter.
Because none of it will bring her back.
Whitney Houston's last performance, "Yes, Jesus Loves Me, with Kelly Price on Friday, Feb. 10. Source: YouTube
hey lady, email me today when u get a sec-
ReplyDeletenikki@curlynikki.com