WW: I don’t understand. What do you think comes first? The urge to be down or the joining the organization and finding out what you have to do to be down?
World: This is what it is.
WW: What?
World: A lot of these dudes they just want, they want a few dollars.
WW: Right?
World: So, they don’t really understand what’s going on.
WW: Right.
World: A lot of them right now, wish that they couldn’t, wish that they didn’t have to go that way.
WW: World is in the studio, everybody! I believe that too. I’ve always said, there are [those who are] born and then you’re down and then there are others who are turned out for things—whether it’s money or fame or whatever.
World: Exactly!
WW: And I, they’re, um . . .
World: All right, we can, let’s look at it like this . . . They got dudes faking they deaths and all kinds of things. Like this is really crazy. All right, let’s look at the history of these people.
A lot of people thought that World was a crackpot and were wondering why I wasted time talking to him. But I realized that people don’t like to think any deeper than required. While World was saying some crazy things, he was also saying some things to make you think. And on my radio show I can interview anyone from the latest rapper that is so new we don’t know anything about him all the way to Russell Simmons to someone like World.
I don’t like to pigeonhole myself where all I interview are celebrities. World was not a celebrity. He was a guy who used to date Lil’ Kim, who had some insight on the music business and on life that he wanted to share with the people. And I gave him a platform to share it. And ultimately, I did so as a public service. There are a lot of dealings going on in the world of music and a lot of young people dying to get into the game. They need to know what they’re looking at. They need all the information they can get their hands on.
CHAPTER
13
Whitney Houston
My interview with Whitney Houston took place on December 15, 2002, two weeks after her big sit-down with Diane Sawyer on ABC Primetime. During Whitney’s interview with Diane Sawyer it was clear to me (and anyone who watched it, for that matter) that Whitney was in a bad way . . . and you fill in the blanks.
Diane Sawyer—who defined herself as the premier interviewer of our times—registered for the first time on my radar with that interview. I was more shocked at the gangsta that Diane Sawyer showed than the responses that Whitney gave to her questions. Diane Sawyer skillfully backed Whitney into an uncomfortable corner and she had Whitney up against several times. So I wasn’t surprised by anything that Whitney was saying because her interviewer put her in a position where she had to answer the questions. And I was sitting there rooting for Diane Sawyer. I was rooting for her.
Two of the most memorable statements to come out of that interview were Whitney’s responses to Diane’s questions about her drug use. Whitney said, “I don’t use crack because crack is whack!” and “You show me the receipts!” And while it was sad to watch, it was also one of the more humorous moments in television history. For days and weeks following the interview people could be heard commenting and laughing about those two statements. In fact, I had a listener of the Experience fax me in receipts from places like Target that read: “Paper Plates: $.99, body lotion: $3.99, cocaine: $250 . . .”
It would be truly funny, if it wasn’t so sad.
Whitney’s behavior was frightening and her body language was very telling. I might have cut plenty of classes at Northeastern, but one class that I excelled in was Body Language 101. And she was a classic case study in deception. Whitney held on to the white pillow on her couch in that Diane Sawyer interview for what looked like dear life. She was perspiring and frequently touching her face, which, body language experts will tell you, indicates deception.
The appearance of Bobby Brown was absolutely telling. And when she brought on Bobbi Kristina I had one hand on the telephone to call child services.
One week after the interview, my husband, son (who was two at the time), and I went to see Whitney Houston perform live at Lincoln Center, which was going to be aired on Good Morning America. It was very, very cold, but we braved the elements because I had to see for myself, I had to see her in person.
She was wearing jeans, a white turtleneck, camel coat, and a short wig. And she performed brilliantly, considering what I had been expecting. She had a problem getting through one song, but for the most part she was, vocally, the Whitney that many of us have grown to love. Hell, when you have a voice as beautiful as Whitney’s, you can lose a bit of the magic and still outsing most of the chicks out there.
That day, I noticed two things. One, perhaps she had lost a little bit of her magic, but that could be easily explained away. It was very cold. Two, I noticed the enthusiasm of the crowd— estimated at more than three thousand people, young and old, black and white—and I knew that the moment Whitney cleaned up her act, people would be right back in her corner, supporting her.
While there were those who showed up that particular day to stare at Whitney and look for the telltale signs of her perhaps being high, there were others, many others, to stare in awe, rocking to the music and singing the words to her songs.
Which one was I, you ask? I was neither. I was there with a two-year-old who prevented me from doing much else than pay attention to him. I left there thinking I was glad Whitney had done the concert and it appeared that she was on a mission of damage control. She had to make the rounds to show the world that she was okay. But she was clearly not okay.
I got the call the following week that Whitney Houston was coming on my radio show, the Experience, on WBLS in New York City. I was surprised, but not really. I figured she had to “make good” for that Diane Sawyer interview, and what better place than the Experience?
But I wasn’t going to hold my breath. One thing that I’ve learned is that you can’t trust a substance abuser to be reliable. Now, I’m not saying that Whitney is a substance abuser, but I was. And fingers have been pointed at her. At the very least she has a long track record of being unreliable in terms of not showing up for concerts and other appearances. So what makes my radio show so important that she will follow through and call? Besides, ultimately, she’s an artist and artists have a habit of not following up on appointments.
So when my manager (who also happens to be my husband, Kevin) called and told me that Whitney Houston would be calling in twenty minutes, I didn’t miss a beat. I kept right on with my show and never said a word to my audience. I figured if she called, great. If she didn’t, no loss.
Actually, I don’t make a habit of letting people know who is coming to visit my show before they arrive. Too often people have gotten talked out of coming when their friends or record labels hear they are on their way to visit me. I get a lot of celebrities who come up to the show on their own and after the interview their record label will say, “Why the hell did you do that?! We set up your interviews and you were to avoid her show!”
I’ve been called a publicist’s worst nightmare. So I wasn’t preparing for Whitney. Besides, if you have to prepare questions for Whitney Houston, you’re not much of a pro. To my surprise, Whitney Houston did call. She called about five o’clock, with one hour remaining on my show. I popped in a DAT, which I use to record all of my interviews, and told my producer to play music while I interviewed Whitney behind the scenes.
I normally interview everyone live, but this time I had a feeling going to tape would work better. Sometimes a guest knows if they curse or act really ill that it can end an interview prematurely. That happened to me in Philadelphia in 2000 when I was interviewing Mariah Carey. I slipped in a question about her breasts saying, “Wow, Mariah, your implants look great!” And she shot back, “I don’t have any fucking implants, Wendy. So put that on the gotdamn radio. Shit!” And it was on the radio . . . end of interview. I wasn’t taking any ch
ances with Whitney Houston. If she wanted to curse and act ill, she could do it to her heart’s content and we would just edit all of the cursing out and play it all for the people.
I had never interviewed Whitney Houston, but I knew she was prone to cursing. In fact, I had never met her before. But I knew she knew me. I had been talking about Whitney Houston on my radio show since she married Bobby Brown. She’s provided enough material to keep me in business for years—from declaring Bobby Brown to be the original king of R & B to her missing appearances and sweating like a pig on awards shows to her relationship with Robin to her breast implants to her pregnancy and eighty-pound weight gain to her near-skeletal appearance on the Michael Jackson special. Whitney has always had a great behind-the-scenes life that has provided more than enough grist for the mill. So I looked at this interview as yet another chapter.
The decline of Whitney Houston—perhaps the greatest diva of our times—is the biggest scandal of this generation. It is bigger than that Michael Jackson mess. Bigger than Kobe Bryant. Bigger than Diana Ross. Bigger than Ben and Jen. Bigger than Robert Blake and O. J. Bigger than Janet Jackson’s boob. In my opinion, the downfall of Whitney Houston is so huge because we have witnessed her literally implode right before our eyes. We have watched her go from our princess, a role model, a gracious woman, to what looks to be one step above a crackhead. For me, as a fan, it’s just really sad, because events don’t seem to be headed toward a happy ending. I pray that they are, but the signs aren’t good.
I thought the Diane Sawyer interview would be a wake-up call for Whitney—a catalyst to her getting it together. Then she comes on the Experience and takes it to a new low. And after that interview, the madness didn’t stop in her world. In May of 2003 Whitney and Bobby went to Dimona, Israel, as guests of the black Hebrews. They were there on some sort of pilgrimage, a spiritual journey, with both Whitney and Bobby getting baptized in the river Jordan. Whitney, who had admitted that she used drugs, had said that she didn’t need rehab. All she needed was Jesus. But Jesus can’t help you if you’re not going to cooperate. So that trip to Israel ended up a fiasco, with Whitney acting very strange. She even refused to shake the hand of Israel’s prime minister Ariel Sharon and was seen just acting weird.
When they returned from Israel, they were back to their old tricks. Not more than a month after coming back, Whitney showed up late for her own birthday party, sparking debate again about whether or not she was using. Then, later in August of 2003, Whitney and Bobby were back in the news when Bobby was arrested and sentenced to fourteen days in jail and sixty days of house arrest for probation violation.
In December of 2003, Whitney called 911 following a fight with Bobby. The cops arrived to find a disheveled Whitney with a cut lip and bruised cheek. Bobby was nowhere to be found. He turned himself in days later and there was Whitney, standing by her man. They left the court all kissy-kissy, acting like everything was fine. Everything is clearly not fine in that household.
This incident wasn’t the first time I had heard about Bobby Brown hitting Whitney. I wasn’t surprised by it. Whitney’s whole journey has turned into such an unbelievable and sometimes comical, yet sad, story that nothing that I hear about her surprises me. And I tend to believe the things I hear more often than not.
My opinion on why Whitney does some of the things she does—pumping her fist for Bobby after leaving the courthouse and jumping into his lap and all of that—is that the amount of money Whitney has amassed probably gives her the feeling that she can do what she wants. She doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks about her.
If she wants to buy a brick of coke and stay in the house and do that brick of coke all day, she can do that and still have more money than all of us. Her bills are still being paid on time. She’s doing it with her husband, it’s not like she’s out cheating on her husband. She’s not necessarily doing it around her daughter. They have a big enough house and they have houses in other states.
I wasn’t shocked when the story came down in March 2004 that Whitney had checked herself into a rehab center. The day that I found out was the same day that the New York Daily News ran a piece in the gossip pages about Star Jones and her fiancé, Al Reynolds, questioning his sexuality. That, honestly, was a bigger topic of conversation with my girlfriends later that day. Some of my girlfriends who are single and would love to be married were criticizing Star for being with a man who used to (or perhaps still does) play for the other team. But I was defending Star. Hell, she knew full well what she was getting into. That’s her business. But that’s what we wanted to talk about. The story of rehab and Whitney was just a passing sentence in our conversation.
When I heard about it, and it’s terrible to say because I am an ex-offender who has overcome, I rolled my eyes and said, “Okay, we’ll see if it works.” My next question was “Who pushed her into it?” I didn’t see this as a move Whitney made on her own.
The next question I had was “Why did she wait until two weeks before Bobby was getting out of jail?” Why would she check in with his release time so close? By the time she got out, there his ass would be waiting for her. And then what? She would be at a much different place, but for how long?
I don’t see Bobby going to rehab too. Men aren’t much for seeking help. And black men? Forget about it. Black women are just now coming around. We used to just take all our problems to the Lord and to church. Now some of us are getting real counseling for our problems. Not that church can’t help, but sometimes you need professional help.
I hope rehab works out for Whitney. But I’m not optimistic, especially if she was forced or threatened into it by her family. If you’re dragged off and your heart’s not in it, you have less of a chance to succeed. You have to want to quit. I know. And coming back to that same home, back to that same man, back to that same life, will certainly drive her back to the drugs. Guaranteed.
If I were Whitney, I would sell the house. Hell, I would move to another state. I would fire everyone who had worked for me in the past—anyone who had ever seen me high would have to go— every maid, every butler, every hairstylist, every clothing stylist.
Speaking as a sober woman, I know how important it is to clean house totally. You can acknowledge in yourself all of the things you’ve done, but you don’t need people around who remind you of those things. Their mere presence can be enough to remind you of when you were falling down high and they helped you take your pants off to go to the bathroom. Those are the kinds of things that can send you back there.
I would get rid of everybody except the daughter and perhaps her mother.
Yes, she should get rid of Bobby too. He is a drunkard, a druggie, a criminal, an abuser, a philanderer, half a father, half a husband, and has no income. What?! Get rid of him!
Move from New Jersey and start a whole new life. She’s forty now and it’s time to start fresh—that’s what being forty is all about. She’s no longer a pop star. I’m sure that Whitney has reckoned with the fact that she may never be that pop star again. But this isn’t about the music for Whitney Houston anymore, this is about survival. This is about her life. The last thing we want to see her end up as is another Billie Holiday.
I pray that Whitney comes out of rehab clean and that she stays clean. I pray that Bobby gets help too. I would love to see Whitney and Bobby be clean together. They will still be that tumultuous couple. Because even without drugs they both still have fire in them.
I have to admit, I cannot get enough of Whitney and Bobby. They make my job easy. And interviewing her was the crowning jewel of my career. I very much enjoyed that interview. I was shocked by some of the things she said and the way she expressed herself, but I was pleased with the way it went.
There were people—and I will say it wasn’t the majority— who thought that Whitney got the best of me during that interview. But those are people who really don’t understand that I knew exactly what I was doing. From the moment Whitney got on the phone, she sounded very high to me.
And as a person who used to get high, I would know. So I knew it was going to be very entertaining, because she was going to be doing all of this chatting. And even if she hung up on me—which I completely expected at some point—that, too, would be entertaining. I had nothing to lose.
The reason why I didn’t respond to many of the things she was saying was because what would be the point? There was no rationalizing with Whitney. Why should I come back at her and try to reason with someone who seemed high to me? So, I took . . . the high road—no pun intended.
And the result: One of the best Whitney Houston interviews of all time. VH1 named the following interview one of the network’s top hundred moments.
INTERVIEW SESSION
Whitney Houston
WH: Wendy, Wendy, Wendy.
WW: Oh, my, gosh.
WH: Oh, my lord, have I waited for this day.
WW: Have you?
WH: Well, yes, I have . . . haven’t you?
WW: Whitney?
WH: Yes, dear?
WW: Absolutely!
WH: I know it.
WW: I don’t believe that I ever met you in my entire career.
WH: Ain’t that funny? You talk about me all the time.
WW: And you are top billing.
WH: Is that why you talk about me all the time?
WW: Absolutely.
WH: ’Cause, you never even met me; you don’t even know me!
WW: But, here’s the thing. I talk about you in two ways. In the way that the media talks about Whitney—
WH: Yup.
WW: —but I always talk about you as being one of the greatest voices of our time. Mariah Carey is another one. You two do two separate works, but you have a voice that is just . . . unbeatable, Whitney.
WH: I love you, Wendy, and I thank you for that. I really do. ’Cause I know that in spite of everything, you play my records.
WW: I do.
WH: I know that.
WW: And I also feel that you and I have something in common.
The Wendy Williams Experience Page 17
