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Warwick gives the skinny on Whitney
submitted by: Roderick H.
source: Chicago Sun-Times
Date: November 16, 2001
BY BILL ZWECKER, SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
In town Thursday for the 2001 HistoryMaker's event at the Field Museum, music legend Dionne Warwick shared her thoughts about the recent press flurry regarding the health of her niece [Correction - Dionne is Whitney's cousin], pop superstar Whitney Houston.
Warwick said she had spoken to Houston "recently ... just a couple of weeks ago and she's coming along.
"It angers me, it really angers me when people take these rags that are on newsstands and people take them to be absolutely gospel, thinking, 'Well, if it's in this newspaper, then it's got to be the truth.' It's such a crock of [crap]."
Warwick said in that recent conversation she again told Houston something she warned her about years ago. "People are going to sling mud at you and some of it is going to stick. The trick is you have to find a way to get to water and wash it off."
As for Houston's extremely gaunt appearance, Warwick acknowledges, "Yes, she's very, very thin," but if one is concerned about her health, "just go ahead and ask her."
Of course, repeated questions from legitimate media outlets have all yielded the same answer from Houston's spokeswoman:
"She's fine and is home with her family and working on her next album."
Warwick was the focus of Thursday night's fund-raiser for HistoryMakers, the national video archive project Julieanna Richardson founded in 1999 to record an oral history capturing the stories of both well-known and unsung African-American heroes. The goal is to interview 5,000 individuals by 2006. The Field Museum event included Warwick being interviewed by her longtime friend and fellow entertainer Diahann Carroll, with Cook County Commissioner and noted singer Jerry ''The Iceman'' Butler serving as emcee.
[Note: I attended this event. It was billed "An Evening with Dionne and Diahann" - Diahann interviewed Dionne, before a live audience, about her life and career. It was professionally taped for the HistoryMakers archives and will be part of a PBS special in the future. Diahann and Dionne were beautiful and very engaging. -Roderick]
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