She and Bobby had decided to go on another cruise with Michael and Donna that summer, like the one they’d taken for their honeymoon. They were on a yacht in the Mediterranean, and sometime during the night of July 21, Nippy suffered a deep cut to her face. Nippy and Bobby swore up and down later that it was just a freak accident, that Bobby was acting out about something and slammed his fist down on a table. They said a piece of china on the table broke, and a shard flew up and hit Nippy right in the face, tearing a nasty two-inch gash in her cheek.
Everybody got serious very fast. Donna pressed a towel to Nippy’s cheek, and they rushed ashore so they could get her straight to a hospital. This was no joke—this was Nippy’s face, and if she didn’t have treatment right away she might be left with a big scar, or worse, since facial nerve damage was possible. Michael was asleep when it happened, so Donna decided not to wake him—which was all the better, because he might have gone after Bobby, even if it was just an accident. As it was, Nippy was apparently yelling at Bobby, “You’re a dead man! You are a goddamn dead man when my mother sees this!”
The Italian doctors put in two stitches, just enough to close the wound so Nippy could fly back to the United States. She had a doctor in Miami who was a world-renowned plastic surgeon, so the hope was that he’d have the know-how to keep her from ending up with any visible damage. Donna called me to tell me what had happened, and to let me know when they would be arriving in Miami. I flew down there as soon as I could, worried sick about what was going to happen to Nippy’s face, and about what had really happened between her and Bobby.
When I got to Miami, I went right to the hospital. Nippy had already had surgery, and when I walked into her room and saw that big old bandage on her face, I was like a mama bear ready to rampage—and she knew it. Right away, she started begging me not to say or do anything to Bobby, who was sitting there on the floor. “Mommy, please,” she said. “It was an accident. I promise!”
I looked at Bobby. “Don’t you say a word to me,” I told him. “I don’t want to hear nothing you have to say.” And he didn’t.
Now, I knew there were people who thought Bobby hit Nippy and caused that cut on her face. But Nippy told me it was an accident, and Donna told me it was an accident, and I wasn’t there, so I had no choice but to believe them. But even if it was an accident, it was an accident that Bobby caused. He may not have cut her on purpose, but he was still the one who cut her. And I really could have killed him for it.
I kept myself in control—for Nippy’s sake. I didn’t want to upset her any more than she already was. I didn’t say a word to Bobby—didn’t even look at him. It took every ounce of strength I had not to wring that man’s neck, but I controlled myself.
Ever since Nippy was little, and getting bullied by those girls in middle school, she knew I would fight anybody who tried to hurt her. It’s how I’ve always been as a mother—you can mess with me, but don’t mess with my kids. Bobby knew that, too, and at least when I was present, he usually behaved himself. So no matter what anyone else was saying, I had no reason to interfere with anything happening between them.
And Nippy never, ever complained to me about Bobby. She just didn’t talk about him, unless it was something good. She knew that I hadn’t approved of her relationship with him at the start, and so I think she was always careful to share the good and avoid the bad when it came to talking about Bobby with me. She just wanted to be a grown-up and handle her own business. When she wanted my advice, she asked for it. Other times, she kept her mouth shut.
More than that, she was a loyal wife, and she really wanted her marriage to work. Of course I heard the rumors about trouble in their marriage. Everybody did. On the very few occasions I ever mentioned them to Nippy, she’d just brush it off, saying, “Mommy, you know how people are. They’ll say anything.” Which was certainly true. So, what could I say to that?
Here is one thing I will say, though: I do believe Bobby had a hard time living in Nippy’s shadow. She was one of the biggest stars in the world, and he was just never as big as she was. For a man like Bobby, it’s not easy to be called “Mr. Whitney Houston.” Nippy knew that, and she’d go to great lengths to make him feel like the boss. Personally I think that’s why she gave him say in decisions like whether she should do The Preacher’s Wife—because she hoped that his participation in major decisions like that would help him feel in charge. She’d say to people, “I’m Mrs. Brown, not the other way around.” If Bobby had been a stronger man, more sure of himself, maybe none of that would have mattered. But he was still young—only twenty-six or twenty-seven at that time—and he never could deal with the dynamics of being Whitney Houston’s husband.
I never knew exactly what was going on between them, and for Nippy’s sake, I tried to stay out of the picture. I didn’t want to cause any more problems than she already had, or embarrass her. And I didn’t want to embarrass him, either, though in the end I felt Bobby embarrassed himself more than anybody else could have. Still, I knew Bobby to be reckless, not violent. As far as what I saw, I didn’t believe then, and don’t believe now, that Bobby hurt Nippy deliberately.
At any rate, something changed in Nippy after her face got cut. Her doctor did a fantastic job of minimizing the scar tissue, and he even reconnected the nerves in her face so there wouldn’t be any sagging. But even though she recovered so well physically, she seemed sadder after that, like something had been taken away from her. She might not have been badly damaged on the outside, but the inside was perhaps a different story.
At the same time all this was going on, Nippy’s daddy was also not doing well. By the late 1990s, John was nearly eighty years old, and he had all kinds of health problems. He was diabetic, he had heart problems, and he couldn’t walk very well. He had finally retired from running Nippy’s company, but he was so anxious to have a hand in everything that he wouldn’t let them clean out his office. It still had all his stuff in it, as if he might walk in any minute and keep on working.
Nippy loved her daddy, and she wanted to make sure he was taken care of. For the most part they got along great, though like every father-daughter relationship, theirs had its complications, and when he was CEO of her company, he sometimes seemed to be looking out for himself as much as for her. As I say, they still always did get along. But there was one thing in particular John did, not long after he married Peggy, that really hurt Nippy.
Growing up, Nippy was John’s princess—she was his only daughter, and he adored her. On holidays, if John gave me flowers, he would always give her flowers, too, and in ways big and small he made her feel loved and appreciated. Nippy needed to be loved, and she counted on her father’s attentions. And even later on, when things got more complicated, he still knew how to make her feel special, like she was his treasure.
When John married Peggy, she already had a young daughter named Alana from a previous relationship. Now, that wasn’t a problem, obviously. The problem came when John decided he was going to adopt Alana—in secret. He didn’t want Nippy to know.
One afternoon a couple of years after John married Peggy, Nippy called over to their house. Alana answered the phone, and Nippy asked if she could speak to John. Alana said sure, and then she yelled, “Daddy!” Nippy was so stunned, she just hung up the phone.
Not long after that, Nippy asked Bae, “What’s up with my father and Alana?” Bae told her she didn’t know, but she said she’d ask John about it. When she did, John admitted that he had adopted the girl.
Bae said, “Okay, but did you tell Nippy?”
“No,” he snapped. “Why do I have to tell her?”
And there it stood, until one day when Nippy, John, and Bae were all in his office together, talking and laughing about something or other. Nippy suddenly said, “Hey, Daddy—I hear I have a new sister.” Bae got up to leave the room, but Nippy said, “No, Bae. I want you to stay.”
There was an awkward moment,
and then John said, “What do you mean? Did I tell you you have a sister?”
“No,” said Nippy. “But I heard it.”
“Well, you don’t have one until I tell you you have one,” he said. And he turned and walked out of the room. He never did admit to Nippy that he’d adopted that girl, but she knew it. And the fact that he’d lied about it probably hurt her more than anything. It didn’t stop her from talking to him, but it made her sad to feel like someone had taken her place with her father.
Nippy might have been able to move past the situation with Alana, but the whole thing demonstrated a darker side to John that had been emerging slowly. As the CEO of Nippy’s company, he’d had enormous power, and at times he’d displayed a manipulative side that came from his need for control. When he wanted, John could still be the same man who’d charmed Elvis all those years ago, but as he got older, he always made it clear that he was in charge, which is exactly what happened when Nippy confronted him about Alana.
Yet even when John hurt her, Nippy loved her daddy fiercely. So when he started having heart problems, she wanted to take care of him. In early October 1997, John had made an appointment to see a renowned cardiologist in the Washington, D.C., area. And coincidentally, Nippy, Michael, Gary, and I were all going to be down there, too, for Nippy’s third HBO special, Classic Whitney.
Because we were all there together, we decided to have a family meeting to talk about John’s health care. By that time, I almost never had anything to do with John and his issues, but I admit that it was nice to feel a little bit involved again. And it was wonderful to have all five of us together again, for the first time in years. The timing was terrible for Nippy, though, as she was frantically trying to rehearse and prepare for her concert, all while dealing with this family drama.
Nippy’s first two specials had been big hits, and now HBO wanted to broadcast her October 5 performance live from DAR Constitution Hall, so she needed to put together a whole show—a mix of her hits and some gospel songs, some tributes to other singers, and a whole narrative to pull the thing together. It’s a lot of work to create a show like that, and the fact that the whole family was in town, talking endlessly about what to do about John—and the fact that I was worried about him—certainly didn’t help her any. This was also her first big performance after having surgery on her face, so she might have been a little self-conscious about that, too.
And unfortunately, Nippy wasn’t in the best voice for that show. For years she had been used to singing absolutely anything, and hitting any notes, that she wanted to. But after twelve years of nonstop performing, she was tired. That, plus the emotion of dealing with her father and his various health problems, as well as her apparently escalating drug problem, affected her during the Classic Whitney concert.
I was scheduled to sing with Nippy on her second song, a ballad she and I had recorded on her album Whitney, called “I Know Him So Well,” from the musical Chess. The song is a duet—a wife and a mistress singing about the same man. But the lyrics really could have been about John, too:
Though I move my world to be with him
Still the gap between us is too wide. . . .
Nippy and I were sitting in chairs, facing each other as we sang, and we just locked in with each other. Between the lyrics and the interplay of those two parts, with their beautiful harmonies, there was just a lot of emotion between us on that stage. We clasped hands toward the end, singing the final phrase, “I know him so well. . . . It took time to understand him . . . but I know him so well.” And then Nippy stood up and pulled me to her in a big hug.
“Thank you, Mama,” she said, before turning to the audience and saying, “That’s my mom! My mom!” I was so proud, and so happy, as always, to have been able to share the stage with my baby girl.
Later in the concert, Nippy brought little Krissi to the stage, holding her in her arms as she sang “Exhale (Shoop Shoop).” In fact, she brought all of Bobby’s kids up to the stage, and then her nieces and nephews, too. She wanted them all up there with her, and so she improvised, singing, “Come on up with me . . . I know you want to be up here . . . Come on up, I know I’ll never hear the end of it . . .” while the whole audience cracked up laughing.
And of course, she brought Bobby onstage. Whenever Bobby was in town for one of her shows, Nippy tried to include him. He was a very talented, though inconsistent, dancer and entertainer. Sometimes he was brilliant, but other times his performance would make me wonder. She’d bring him out and he would dance, even though Bobby’s kind of dancing didn’t really fit with Nippy’s music. He’d be tearing off his shirt, dancing in that street style he had—and at Constitution Hall that night, even though he was dancing to “Mr. Bojangles,” he still had to unbutton his shirt and show off his chest at the end. It was a strange sight, Nippy in her long, glamorous gown and Bobby with his shirt hanging open, but after the show she told everyone who would listen how good he was.
Nippy knew her performance in Classic Whitney wasn’t as good as it could have been, and she cried after the show was over. Then, always the loyal wife, she said, “But at least Bobby was good.”
CHAPTER 14
A Very Bad Year
Even though Nippy’s movies and their soundtracks had done well, it had been seven years since she had recorded a studio album. Clive Davis was itching to get her back in the studio, but unbeknownst to me at the time, he had a bigger concern than that.
As Nippy’s representatives, Toni Chambers and the attorney Sheldon Platt went to talk to Clive about when she might start recording a new album, but Clive had been hearing some things about Nippy, and he knew some of her recent performances hadn’t been up to par. She had even started bowing out of a few shows here and there, which had been extremely rare until recently.
Clive loved Nippy too much to mess around. “What are you going to do about the drugs?” he asked point-blank. “I’ve been hearing some things, and they’re not good.”
Now, at this point, I still didn’t know anything about Nippy doing drugs. Back in the late 1980s, I’d had that one conversation with Robyn Crawford and then asked Nippy about it. But Nippy and I had never talked about it again, and I assumed she had been able to take care of it. If she was getting high, she certainly wasn’t doing it around me. And if she was doing it around other people, they certainly weren’t telling me about it.
I’d heard about her canceling a couple of shows here and there, and while I wasn’t happy about it, I believed the reasons Nippy gave me about why she backed out of those shows—that she was either sick or having problems with her voice. Behind the scenes, she may have been getting worse and canceling because she was partying or wasn’t in any shape to sing, but I’d never seen any signs of that. As far as I knew, the whole idea of Nippy and drugs was all in the past with that lone conversation I’d had with Robyn Crawford ten years earlier.
But Clive obviously knew some things I didn’t, because he was really concerned. And when Toni relayed his message to Nippy, she got scared that people knew she had a problem. She’d been able to keep her secret for several years, and the idea that people in the industry were starting to know what she was doing frightened her. So, as she sometimes did, she called her daddy to intercede.
Though John had supposedly retired from working for her, he agreed to step in to talk with Clive. And when Clive recommended sending Nippy to rehab—and even suggested a place in Connecticut—John decided he’d check it out. But instead of consulting with me, John just took Robyn to go see the facility, without ever saying one word to me.
Much later, when I found out that John and Robyn had done that, in secret, without even having the courtesy to let me know, I was livid. Since we’d divorced, there’d been times that John had tried to keep me out of one decision or another, and I mostly let those roll off my back. But this was going too far. John was a good man, a kind father, and wonderful husband, but when it came to
the safety of my children he knew better than to withhold this kind of information from me. If Nippy was in that much trouble, and if she was going to be getting some kind of treatment, I needed to know about it. I needed to have some input. Yes, John was her daddy, but I was her mother. If anything, it should have been John and me—not John and Robyn—making that kind of decision.
Nippy didn’t end up going to any rehab at that point, and she must have convinced Clive that she was fine, because she went ahead and recorded a new album for Arista: My Love Is Your Love. Despite what she was going through, she did a beautiful job on that record. At first, Clive just wanted a greatest hits album with a few new songs, but the recording sessions went so well that Arista released an entirely new album. It came out in November 1998, and while it didn’t sell as well as Nippy’s earlier records, a lot of people felt it was her best one yet. Whatever else was going on with her, my baby girl still could sing.
In the summer of 1999, Nippy went on tour in support of My Love Is Your Love. But this time, instead of the huge stage shows of her earlier tours, she performed in theaters and other smaller venues, because she wanted a little more intimate setting. Nippy was thirty-five now, and her new album was more adult-oriented. She wanted to do a show for grown-ups.
I think she also hoped that doing shows in smaller venues would help preserve her voice. Though her voice came through just fine in the studio, Nippy was having more trouble than ever with her throat in live performances, and again she had to cancel a few dates—two of them before her hometown audience in Newark. People said all kinds of things when she canceled those shows, of course—everybody in the world thought they knew what was going on with her, even if no one really did. But the truth was, the very real struggles she was having with her voice as she got older were made even worse by the partying she was doing, which, as I found out later, included smoking cigarettes and smoking other things.
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