POP diva Whitney Houston has stunned entertainment circles by serving her ties to longtime publicist Lois Smith. Neither side will comment on the split-but sources close to the action suspect Houston's hot-tempered hubby Bobby Brown could be behind it. As The Post reported last month, Brown has reportedly fired most of his wife's entourage and is pulling the strings himself. Other insiders speculate that Smith may at last have tired of running interference for the embattled Houston and dropped her. "I wouldn't blame (Smith)," another high-powered Hollywood publicist told PAGE SIX.

"Whitney's name is turning up in the press more and more - and the stories aren't good." Indeed. Last month, Houston drew fire for her last- minute cancellation at Rev. Sun Myung Moon's "True Love Day" concert in Washington, D.C. The singer - who was being paid $1 million for the gig - waited until two hours before the show before telling the Moonies she was too sick to go on. Days before, Houston had begged off a much-promoted apperance on Rosie O'Donnell's show, claiming illness that insiders supspect was more the result of a late night with Brown.

Whatever the case the 'dis put Smith in a bad spot, since she represented both Houston and O'Donnell. Making things worse, a Healthy-looking Houston taped David Letterman's show later that day. This week, Brown ans Houston made supermarket tabs after an explosive, glass-throwing fight with a bartender in a Maui (Hawaii) club.

"For a whle there it used to Bobby, not Whitney, you'd read about in these incidents," a source said. "Now she's right in the thick of it." Over the years, the short-fused Brown has been nearly killed in a drug-related Boston shootout, urinated in the back of a police car, crashed a Bentley in London and his wife's Porsche in Miami, and kicked a security guard in Los Angeles.

This was the article word for word and a lot of the information is wrong. Some of it may be right. But I don't think they know what their talking about, "getting second-hand information and speculated. There may be a good reason Whitney dropped Smith. She may have found out that she was leaking information to the press for money, just like the other one she got rid of . Could Whitney be that bad?
~ Sharon