It’s been almost a year since Whitney Houston tragically passed away last February, and her death left a cloud over the industry and the lives of her friends and family, namely her mother, Cissy Houston. In her latest memoir, Remembering Whitney, Cissy ponders the tumultuous life of her late daughter and opens up about her infamous drug use and even rumors that she was a lesbian.
Earlier this week, People published excerpts from the book, in which Cissy sadly asks herself: “Could I have saved her somehow?” Although Cissy may never find an answer to that question, she, of course, devotes her writing to the past as she recalls Houston’s downward spiral into a life of drugs.
“She started partying and she didn’t really know how to stop,” says Cissy. “I used to wonder what she was doing at night, where she was.”
However, when Cissy tried to contact her daughter, she would often be ignored. “Whitney hid from me,” says Cissy.
Cissy says that she was too afraid to confront Houston about her drug use, even as the singer appeared emaciated at the Michael Jackson tribute concert in 2001.
“What was the point?” she asks. “I didn’t want her to run completely away from me.”
Though Houston seemed to have beaten her demons in 2009, when she staged a comeback, her life and her music came to a tragic end on Feb. 11, 2012, when she drowned in a hotel bathtub with traces of cocaine still in her system. For Cissy, it’s not just the loss of her daughter that breaks her heart, it’s also the fact that Houston died alone.
“I’m angry she died alone, in those conditions,” she says. “I’m still mad about that.”
In the memoir, Cissy also address the long-standing rumors that Houston was involved in a romantic relationship with her former assistant and creative director, Robyn Crawford. Because of Crawford’s close relationship with Houston, she was the first to tell Cissy that her daughter had a drug problem. But Cissy says that she’s not sure just how Houston’s relationship was with Crawford.
“I just didn’t want her with my daughter,” she says. “I know nothing about a romantic relationship. That’s what everybody said but they didn’t know either.”
Well, Houston certainly wasn’t the only celeb to be suspected of having a same-sex relationship. Check out some other celebs who are rumored to be gay below. –nicholas robinson
