She's not right and she's certainly not OK! A decade of partying and bizarre antics has made Whitney Houston's career a rolling freak show. Believe it or not it just got weirder....


[Note: Whitney has never admitted to a "decade of partying" and she hasn't exhibited "bizarre antics" for the past ten years.]

On May 27th 2003 Whitney Houston was back in front of the cameras, smiling her widest and most photogenic smile. Perhaps because she was in Jerusalem, wearing a bright red embroidered robe and being introduced, along with ever-present husband Bobby Brown, to Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. The official line is that was that Whitney and her husband were in Israel on what they called "a spiritual retreat", visiting holy sites at Jerusalem and Galilee and spending a few days with the black Hebrews, a 200 strong group of black Hebrews who believe themselves to be one of the lost tribes of the Israelites. Others believe them to be a strange, vegan cult led by a man who was once a bus driver in Chicago. Naturally there was no mention of political matters during the Israel trip, nor any comment on the recent troubles in Palestine. When asked at the Sharon meeting how she liked Israel, a country she had never previously visited, Houston said: "Its home. It's a friendship I've never had with any other country." Business, however, was discussed. Houston also spoke to the Israeli tourism minister, who indicated that she could be returning to Israel later in the year to record a Christmas special for cable channel HBO, possibly with Stevie Wonder. Even by the standards of Whitney Houston's tangled life, the Israel trip - and the accompanying pictures of Whitney sightseeing in Jerusalem, Whitney shopping for souvenirs, Whitney bathing in the river Jordan - seemed thoroughly weird. [Note: Whitney was baptized in the River Jordan. She wasn't "bathing" in it.] Just what was going on Whitney Houston? That question has been asked pretty consistently for over a decade, and we still seem no nearer an answer.

The Israeli visit did at least make Whitney Houston news again. Helpful when you consider that the singer is in the middle of a comeback - one of those comebacks stars make when they haven't been away, just making the kind of headlines that their record companies wish they hadn't. So far it's working. Well sort of. Her latest album, the actually - quite ordinary Just Whitney, came out last December and has proved a moderate success - by Whitney standards anyway. A top 10 hit in the U.S., here it didn't even make the top 75. Perhaps because most people outside the U.S. didn't get to see last December's TV special with Diane Sawyer during which Houston admitted, "I partied" - with the help of unspecified quantities of booze, cocaine, and pills. This was the interview which was supposed to clear away all the rumours, which in summary are: that the once un-impeachable Whitney Houston is a drug-addict closet lesbian who lives in fear of a violent husband. Yes, she said, I have taken drugs. As for the rest? All fiction. What she could not dispel, though, was the sense of a woman who remains uncomfortable with her public image and who finds it difficult (impossible?) to relax when talking about herself. She also came across as patronising and hopelessly out of touch with the world around her. After Sawyer mentioned rumours suggesting that Whitney had gone to rehab for crack, she responded: "First of all, lets get one thing straight. Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Lets get that straight, OK? We don't do crack. We don't do that. Crack is wack." Later she referred to herself and Bobby Brown as "rock and rollers man"- which might be her way of saying that black artists who admit to taking drugs are usually viewed as delinquents, whereas white rock artists have the potential to be hailed as countercultural icons. Or simply her way of admitting that she loved every minute of it. Mostly though, it sounded embarrassing. Rock'n'Roll might not be the obvious term to describe Houston. Yet she does suffer from the contradictions and insecurities common to performers who started their careers young. In 1985 when Houston released her first album (the one called simply Whitney Houston) she looked as if she still sang in church choir at the weekends. In keeping with her pristine image, her voice was clear and powerful, almost strident at times and perfectly matched to the power ballads and disco-lite ordered up for her by Arista Records' Clive Davis, who had signed Whitney at 19 after hearing her sing at a showcase in New York. Perhaps one of the reasons her later problems seemed so surprising was that, under Davis's Svengali-like guidance, the robotic perfection of her recording and apparent lack of any personal life rendered her almost inhuman. "I spent all my 20s making music, doing gigs and videos and movies," she says. "By the time I got to be 28, I was like 'Whooooo.' I was ready too par-tay. Do my thing. I was like, 'Oh, yeah I'm bad, I'm crazy.' I did that and it was fun. I know what to tell Krissy, this is what you don't do." That puritanical aside can be read either as sensitivity to making the wrong kind of public statement, or reassertion of the old Whitney- the God fearing daughter of '60s session singer Cissy Houston who sang solo in church as soon as her mother realised she has a voice. After all the now standard biography of Whitney states that it was only after her 1992 marriage to RnB bad boy Bobby Brown, one of new jack swing heart-throbs New Edition, that she started to go of the rails. Yet it has become increasingly clear that Whitney's image in the early 80's and early 90's was just that, an image. An airbrushed fantasy-figure who looked more like a magazine cover girl (which she had been as a teenager) than a singer, tricked out in blonde wigs and pale make-up. According to Kevin Reynolds, who worked with Clive Davis at Arista, Davis groomed her to look more generic from the outset: "The early versions of Saving All My Love sounded like the new Aretha Franklin. But Clive didn't like it - No its too black. Clive also complained that the cover of Whitney's first album made her look too ethnic".

It's the contrast between Davis's marketing genius and her messy relationship with Bobby Brown that continues to fascinate. When they met back in the early 90s, it was suggested that a relationship with Brown would make Houston appeal more to a black audience, after she'd been booed at the 1989 Soul Train Awards. It might also help her break out of the prom-queen packaging that Davis had wrapped around her. "I was supposed to marry the white guy," she says. "I was a black woman princess-queen kind of figure, all that madness. But I can wear a gown as well as I can wear jeans and boots and sneakers. I just think they had me a little wrong". RnB producer Teddy Reilly, who has worked with Bobby Brown, feels the same way, if for different reasons. "Bobby and I were both born in the hood and have a bit of craziness," he says. "When I first met Whitney I could see that she has a little craziness in her too". Mutual craziness or not, Houston's support for Bobby Brown has been unwavering over the years, even during the difficult times- such as in 1996 when he wrapped her black Porsche Carrera around a traffic sign outside Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Or when in June 1997 when it was reported that Brown has been seen slapping Houston during an argument at a mall (Houston later dismissed the claim as a case of mistaken identity). Or a month later when Houston was taken to hospital in Italy with a deep cut to her face. She later stated that she had hit a rock while diving. [Note: The media reported this, but Whitney herself never stated this. Whitney always maintained that she cut her face during a boat mishap that caused her to lose her balance.] During last year's television interview, Houston told Sawyer, "No he has never hit me, I've hit him in anger". As teen stars guided by music industry father figures (in Brown's case New Edition producer Maurice Starr) there has been plenty for each of them to rebel against. At their first meeting- an awards ceremony, naturally- they almost rebelled against each other. Houston flirted with Brown, he more or less ignored her. [Note: Actually, Whitney accidentally hit Bobby in the head while she was talking to friends, which caused him to give her a dirty look.] "I was like 'Ooooh, this guy does not like me,'" she says. "Well, I always get curious when somebody does not like me. I want to know why. So I said 'I'm going to invite Bobby to a party.' And I did. And he called back and said, 'I'd love to come,' which was a surprise. He was the first male I met in the business that I could talk to and be real with".

Prior to their marriage in 1992- a lavish affair attended by doves, swans, close friends, relatives, and Donald Trump - Houston's relationships were something of a mystery. As far as anyone knew, she had none. At least, not with the opposite sex. It was around this time that rumours first began to circulate about her close ties with her friend and advisor, Robyn Crawford. Rumours that Houston has consistently and wearily denied. Even back in 1993 she was saying, "I'm so f---ing tired of that question, and I'm tired of answering it". These days it doesn't get asked so much. Besides, Crawford left Houston's management company in 2000. But it was true that, growing up, Houston mistrusted men. She had two older brothers, and the way they talked so casually about sex with their girlfriends made her uncomfortable. "I knew all the raps," she said. "I knew all the s--- that guys could lay on you from A to Z. I got to hear how guys talked about girls." In a way her eye was too keen, she saw and understood too much, perhaps even more than she wanted to. And as with her childhood, so with her career. Having topped the charts and toured the world, by 1993 it seemed as if she were already tired, uncomfortable, too much in the know, and looking for a way out. "You know what I feel? I feel old," she told Rolling Stone. "For the most part, from the time I was 11 years old, I've been working. I did the nightclubs, I did the modelling, all that stuff.... you know what's fun to me? Being with my husband, being with my family, going out and laughing, having a good time. That's my fun, but the fun in this business, the excitement, like at the beginning? Gone." Today the early nineties remain the highpoint of Houston's career - sales wise anyway- her appearance alongside Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard (and accompanying karaoke favourite I Will Always Love You) summing up her mainstream appeal: polished and professional, but also mannered and soulless. Her subsequent films- Waiting To Exhale (1995) and The Preacher's Wife (1996) - showed a no less clichéd, but more human side and had a fraction of the impact at the box office. Returning to the studio in 1998, My Love Is Your Love finally showed that there was more to the fabled Houston larynx than clinical ballads- most notably the Rodney Jerkins produced track Its Not Right.... The elusive beat and slinky production matched her voice better than anything that was written for her since the 80s. While her music showed signs of rejuvenation, lurid reports of her and Brown's behaviour were reaching the media with increasing frequency. In January 2000 officials at Keahole-Kona Airport in Hawaii found 15g of cannabis and three half smoked joints in Houston's bag. Rather than wait to be arrested, she left the bag and boarded her plane. Later charged with possession she pleaded no contest and escaped with community orders and a small fine. A month later however, she was in the news again, turning up for a photo shoot with U.S. magazine Jane only to wander around the studio looking "extremely unfocused" and playing "an imaginary piano". Asked about her subsequent behaviour she snapped, "People pick on me, but they don't know me. You could analyse me all f---ing day and I'm the same person. What do I care?" In March Houston was due to perform at the Oscars. But at rehearsals with music director Burt Bacharach, Houston's started bad and got rapidly worse. She began singing Someone To Watch Over Me instead of Somewhere Over The Rainbow, then forgot the words to Alfie and The Way We Were. She looked distracted and the legendary voice was unable to hit the high notes. She then found it impossible to sing and walk down steps at the same time. Her publicist said afterward: "She's not good at stairs". Bacharach was less forgiving, commenting archly: "I feel badly for her chronic condition."

At this point in her life, discussion of this chronic condition had almost entirely taken over from discussion of her career. The U.S. tabloids had more or less made up their minds that Houston was a drug user and borderline addict, even though as late as 2001 she was denying she had a drug problem. "They think there is more to know" she claimed. "Aint nothing up my sleeve". Somehow, she still managed to broker a record-breaking $100 million/six album deal with Arista that summer, although so far only 1 album has been released: Just Whitney. [Note: The Love, Whitney compilation CD has also been released since the 2001 contract.] By turns apologetic regarding past misdemeanours and resentful of media intrusion, the lyrics to Try It On My Own sound like typical twelve step "empowerment", all about moving on and consigning the past to the past: "I'm not the foolish girl you used to know", "I've learned from my mistakes which way to go". Yet Houston hasn't done a 12-step programme. She did God instead, under the guidance of Perri "Pebbles" Reid, '80s R&B singer, ex-wife of Arista boss LA Reid, ad one time manager of TLC. Reid is now known as Sister Perri and has her own church, Women of God Changing lives Through Christ. For seven months last year, Brown, Houston and their daughter stayed at Perri's White Colonnaded mansion in Atlanta. "She took me under her wing," says Houston. "She took me through a transition of deliverance and prayer.... you need somebody to give you tough love, people to remind you that you are a child of God and you don't belong to the devil." Curiously, though she hasn't actually said that she will never use drugs again: "I'm not going to tell you that," she told Sawyer. "I'm not the strongest every day, but I'm not the weakest and I won't break". That's about as close as Houston gets to a confessional: Appealing to a higher authority, placing herself with God, and all the doubters with the devil. [Note: This is an obvious misreading of her quote above.] At least Brown is unrepentant. He told Diane Sawyer that he still smoked marijuana (for medical reasons, obviously, and not every day just every other day) and in January this year missed a Georgia court hearing so that he could perform at the American Music Awards in Los Angeles. He has also been talking about a feature film called "Beffy and Charlie", about a pair of musicians cum gangsters. He and Houston will "be singing, robbing, stealing- a lot of things that people might not want to see us do." By comparison Houston's message grows more confused with each public appearance she makes. On the one hand she unrepentant about the partying. On the other, she wants to make a public show of contrition, in her latest interviews talking as if she's metamorphosed into a humble woman of God who wishes for nothing more than to give up show business in favour of baking cookies and sitting "on a porch somewhere rocking with my husband and my grandchildren". [Note: Whitney has made this statement before about wanting to grow old, out of the spotlight, with her family. It's in no way an expression of remorse.] If only. Just spare a thought for Houston's 10-year-old daughter Bobbi Kristina, the mother of those gambolling future grandchildren: "She's a diva in training", says Houston. "If there's ever going to be another me it's her".