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It's confirmed: Houston did step out
submitted by: Lisa D.
source: Atlanta Journal and Constitution
Date: March 30, 2004
By RICHARD L. ELDREDGE
As it turns out, there was no need to burn up the long-distance lines talking to an out-of-touch Los Angeles-based publicist about Alpharetta resident Whitney Houston's whereabouts these days. As Buzz Central discovered Tuesday, the facts were as close as Mark Trigg, the pop star's Atlanta attorney.
When Trigg read our account in Tuesday's column about Houston taking in the sold-out Beyoncé-Missy Elliott-Alicia Keys show at Philips Arena Sunday night, he rang us to confirm that his client was indeed there. And, more importantly, that the singer is continuing in-patient treatment in rehab.
"She is still currently enrolled in the facility," Trigg told us. "She is allowed out, however, only if she is accompanied with representatives from the facility. It was decided that the concert was an appropriate social outing."
Translation: That woman in the fur coat acknowledging the cheers of her fans at Philips Arena Sunday night was Houston and she is being treated locally. Her Los Angeles publicist, Nancy Seltzer, initially denied that the singer was at the show.
Best of all, Trigg says his client continues to make progress in the facility's program. Said Trigg: "She is fully committed to her recovery. She is also aware and extremely grateful for the support and well wishes of her fans."
A little extra dose of divadom at show?
By RICHARD L. ELDREDGE
Fans taking in the Beyonce, Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott Ladies First concert at Philips Arena got an extra diva for their money Sunday night --- Whitney Houston.
Dutiful Buzz readers burned up various lines of communication Monday morning to report the celeb sighting. According to eyewitnesses at the show, despite a springlike temperature outside, Houston materialized in the audience wearing a gray cap and a heavy fur coat, striding down a row of the arena between Keys and Beyonce's sets.
When we contacted Houston spokeswoman Nancy Seltzer in Los Angeles Monday morning, Seltzer insisted to Buzz that the Philips Arena sighting was a case of mistaken identity and that the singer remains at an undisclosed rehab center.
There was a pause on the long-distance line when we told Seltzer that a photographer hired by the AJC to shoot Sunday night's show also snapped a photo of Houston and the image had been placed in an online AJC photo gallery.
"I'll have to check into this," Seltzer said.
Hot 107.9 morning man Ryan Cameron, who was at the show, says it was definitely the troubled pop singer. "She had all these people around her and when the crowd realized who she was and started screaming, she did her trademark Whitney move of pumping her fist in the air. She was acknowledging the crowd acknowledging her."
And how did Houston look, according to Cameron? "She looked like a ballerina."
Come again?
"I mean," he clarified, "every ballerina I've seen onstage has always been thin and she looked like a ballerina. She was waiflike, let's say."
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