Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Exclusive: Whitney Was “Fine” and in “Great Mood”: Musical Director

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EXCLUSIVE Ricky Minor, Whitney Houston’s longtime musical director, tells me that he met with her on Thursday morning here at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. “She’d just been swimming. It was before 9am. She loves to swim. She had wet hair and she was getting it all over me.” Minor was getting ready to rehearse Brandy and Monica for a medley of Supremes songs for Clive Davis’s dinner–being held now, only three hours after Whitney’s tragic death. “She stayed, gave the girls advice. She was singing along from the theater. She said, Can I have a mike? And I said No, this is their show,” Minor said, remembering that he was joking. He is in shock he says. While we spoke, another member of the Davis team came along and said “I spoke to her yesterday. She was fine.” Minor tells me Whitney showed him her athletic arms from swimming, and was “very proud” of her athletic condition. “She said she was very excited about producing Sparkle and wanted to produce more films. It’s unbelievable.”

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009 and previously edited Fame magazine and wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. is articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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