Clive Davis on Whitney Houston: “She was in complete denial” about her drug problems
Most readers will go straight to the Whitney Houston section of record mogul Clive Davis’s autobiography, “The Soundtrack of My Life,” published today by Simon & Schuster. It’s heartbreaking when you realize how much Davis did to try and help Houston. Davis includes letters he sent Whitney from the beginning of her career to the morning after her shockingly thin appearance – a result of her drug addiction– in September 2001 at Michael Jackson’s 30th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden.
He wrote: “Dearest Whitney: When I saw you last night at the Michael Jackson concert, I gasped. When I got home I cried. My dear, dear Whitney. The time has come.” He implored her to get help quickly. She didn’t listen.
Read the full letter here: http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/02/19/clive-daviss-pleading-letter-to-whitney-houston-september-2011
Clive brought Whitney and her entourage to his home in Westchester County, New York, as a kind of intervention. It wasn’t to make money. It was to save her life. But she wouldn’t listen when he spoke to her with urgency about her problems. “She was in complete denial,” Davis writer. “I knew that if an addict does not want to get help, there ultimately is very little that anyone else can do.”
There were at least two other interventions and rehab stints that Davis supported but didn’t engineer. But there is just so much you can do: when Whitney got into a fight with a flight attendant on her way to Detroit to shoot “Sparkle,” it made headlines. This reporter was the one who mentioned it to Clive, and suggested trouble was brewing. The disappointment on his face was palpable. It hurt him to hear she might be suffering again.
Davis got the call that Whitney died as he was dressing for his annual pre-Grammy dinner. She had just been in his hotel suite that week. He writes: “There are moments when time stands still, and you feel as if you can’t even begin to comprehend the words that are being spoken to you. That’s how I felt right then.”
Now he is running his mouth after all the money she made him! WOW!!
I lovedd her music – shuch a waste – to bad she had such a character defect. A junkir is a junkie.
JFW, there are many programs for drug addictions, why would she need a government program that I would pay for with my tax dollars? If a celebrity wants to F*#$ off and get loaded, why should I be there to clean up the mess? Dumb…
Who cares? I think she is dead and buried, let her RIP.
Houston was a HUGE talent. Incredible voice. Many still deny her relationship with Brown had anything to do with her downfall but any objective person knows that is not true. Her relationship with Brown was a disaster from the start. Or is could be that you can take the girl our of Newark but you cannot take Newark out of the girl. Such a waste.
Very sad indeed. So much talent gone to waste. My hat goes off to Clive for trying so hard to reform but the addict has to want the help.
Cindy
BFD. Get over it.
People said all that stuff ten years ago.
She’s dead. Who cares?
A sane Society is in trouble,sports,hollywood,politicians.
Money,drugs
It’s a shame that there were no government programs available for Houston so that she could get the addiction healthcare she so desperately needed. Properly trained intervention counselors could have saved her life.
Who?