Table of contents for Whitney Houston - The TRUE STORY in Whitney Houston - The TRUE STORY

There is no one path to pop stardom. Sometimes songs are enough to carry you, and sometimes all it takes is a certain look. Sometimes you just need to be in the right place at the right time, catching the right trend with the right support. There are legends who tick several of those boxes, but the list of musicians who cover it all—and have one of the most incredible voices ever captured on tape—is extremely small. That list begins with Whitney Houston. In her brief but transcendent career, she sold millions of albums, dominated the singles charts, turned in a handful of indelible performances both onstage and on-screen, collected dozens of awards and stood as an inspiration to countless fans and followers. But like so many pop culture fairy…

While Whitney Houston toured the world celebrating the unprecedented success of her self-titled debut, Clive Davis was plotting her next musical move. The Arista Records chief was not one to deviate from a successful formula, so he brought back producers Michael Narada Walden, Michael Masser and Kashif Saleem, and gave a single track to longtime Madonna collaborator John “Jellybean” Benitez. Davis also handpicked tunes from a wide variety of writers who were now clamoring for Houston to sing their songs (hence the presence of hitmakers Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, who had penned songs for Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, and who delivered “So Emotional” to Houston). But it was Walden who took the reins on the bulk of the music that would comprise Houston’s second album, Whitney, producing seven of…

Between the film and its juggernaut soundtrack, The Bodyguard took up most of Whitney Houston’s life for about three years. During that time, she had a daughter, collected more awards, completed another huge world tour, set sales records and—as one of the most sought-after performers in both music and film—plotted out her next move. It seemed for a minute that she might become a full-time movie star; she followed The Bodyguard with the ensemble dramedy Waiting To Exhale in 1995, and then starred opposite Denzel Washington in The Preacher’s Wife the next year. Although only Waiting to Exhale was a box-office success, both films yielded more hit songs for Houston: The Babyface-penned “Exhale (Shoop Shoop)” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (only the third song in history…

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Whitney Elizabeth Houston was born into a deeply musical family on Aug. 9, 1963. Her mother, Cissy, was a well-known gospel singer who, at various times in her career, also backed up Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Dusty Springfield. When Whitney was born, Cissy asked friend, collaborator and “He’s a Rebel” hitmaker, Darlene Love, to be godmother to her newborn daughter. Whitney’s cousin Dionne Warwick was already an ascending star, and Aretha Franklin was a family friend known to the young girl as “Aunt Ree.” Whitney sang in church at an early age and was onstage in clubs and theaters with her mother by her tween years. By the time she was old enough to drive, she had recorded backing vocals for albums by Lou Rawls and Chaka Khan. Whitney’s…

When the 1990s began, few movie stars were bigger than Kevin Costner. Costner had already collected an armload of Oscars for his 1990 directorial debut, Dances With Wolves. He was as big a power player as there was in show business, and he was looking for a new project. Five years earlier, Lawrence Kasdan had been directing Costner in a Western called Silverado and showed Costner the script for a film called The Bodyguard, which Kasdan had written back in the 1970s. The film had seen a handful of false starts since then—Ryan O’Neal and Diana Ross had been slated to star in it in 1978, but that production fell apart. Costner liked both the script and Kasdan, and they agreed to produce the movie together once Costner had enough…

Despite the positive momentum from the release of I Look To You and her interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2009, Houston was still dogged by rumors and controversy. On her Nothing But Love world tour, which did not feature any North American dates, several shows had to be postponed or canceled due to “health issues,” and reviews from her performances in Asia and Europe were not positive. (Of her London show, one critic noted, “Where once she soared, now she wheezes and croaks.”) The tour wrapped in the summer of 2010, and by mid-2011 she was back in rehab. (She’d admitted to a previous 30-day stint in 1996 in her interview with Oprah.) Still, Houston seemed dedicated to returning to what she once was, and in the fall…

Considering her voice, look and unparalleled charm, Whitney Houston probably would have had a successful career in music without much outside assistance. She came from an extended musical family and already had serious connections to several areas of the industry. But Clive Davis saw something beyond success for her—he wanted even more. He believed her talent was so great that she could be a worldwide sensation, the kind of artist who crossed over the borders typically dictated by genre, generation and even language. That type of megastardom takes more than just a few good songs, and Davis spent nearly two painstaking years seeking out the best possible material for Houston. The impresario hosted showcases in both New York and Los Angeles in order to recruit song-writers and producers to sign…

Like any star of her caliber, Whitney Houston struggled to keep her personal life private. She always considered herself guarded by nature, and thanks to her general unwillingness to tip her hand about romantic entanglements, she was the subject of countless tabloid rumors. But even with her rapid ascent to worldwide icon status, she always kept the goals of marriage and children in the back of her mind. “I’m a very patient woman,” she told Ebony just before The Bodyguard began shooting. “I don’t want to fall in love; I want to walk in and find out what I’m loving. I don’t want to get hurt.” Up until that point, Houston had long been associated with actor and comedian Eddie Murphy, who became a major star a few years before…

For a brief, glorious moment, Whitney Houston was one of the biggest pop stars—and most famous Black women—on the planet. Along with her radiant beauty and her natural charisma, she conquered the world with the power of her voice. It’s easy to take it for granted considering all of the titanic divas who came before and after, but Houston’s incredible instrument really was a once-in-a-generation miracle. “She had a soaring range. She had power, she had lyrical expressiveness,” Clive Davis said of the first time he heard her sing. “It was a pure, natural gift.” Houston shared that gift generously for more than 25 years with millions of fans and admirers, and her worldwide success helped break down barriers and inspired entire generations of performers. She became such a phenomenon…