Whitney Houston hits rock bottom

Herald Sun ^ | 04/04/06 | NICK PAPPS

[freedom44]

IT'S hard to believe that the drugged, dazed woman seen wandering the streets near her home was once one of the most beautiful and popular singers in the world.

But today that woman, Whitney Houston, is just another crackhead.

In a painfully public self-destruction, the six-time Grammy award winner, who had hits such as I Wanna Dance with Somebody and Greatest Love of All has spiralled into a drug hell that appears irreversible.

Houston's life hit rock bottom this week when photographs, published in The National Enquirer in the US, showed a bathroom in her $7.2 million mansion looking more like a crack den.

They showed cocaine-caked spoons discarded across expensive marble. There is a crack-smoking pipe, cigarette butts, empty beer cans, and the basin seems to be used only to hold rubbish and drug paraphernalia.

The pictures were taken by Houston's sister-in-law, Tina Brown. She said she released them in the hope they would shock the singer into giving up drugs.

Brown, sister of Houston's husband, Bobby Brown, has revealed the once-beautiful Houston rarely washes and spends weeks in filthy dens smoking crack cocaine and crystal meth.

"The truth needs to come out," Tina Brown said. "Whitney won't stay off the drugs. It's every single day. It's so ugly. Everyone is so scared she is going to overdose."

Whitney's mother, Cissy Houston, recently confessed to begging her daughter on bended knee to clean up for the sake of her child, Bobbi.

And a couple of months ago, friends hoped she had reformed thanks to a "spiritual adviser" and her renewed links to a controversial religious sect of black Jews.

But that clean-living image has been shown to be just a front with the publication of Tina Brown's pictures.

In her drug frenzy, Houston has broken tens of thousands of dollars in furniture and bitten and cut herself.

Tina Brown says: "She'll point to the floor and say, 'See that demon. I tell you somebody's messing with Bobby'. She always thinks it's something to do with Bobby, but it's her hitting herself." So paranoid is Houston that she spends days locked in a bathroom, peering through a small hole she had made to watch for "attackers".

Tina Brown says Houston regularly summons drug dealers for balls of crack, rocks of cocaine that each weigh 3.5g.

She claims Houston mixes the drug and marijuana, stuffs it inside a cigar and smokes the concoction in one sitting.

Drug dealers have boasted that they regularly rip off Houston. One dealer even says he's made $1.4 million selling drugs to Houston and Bobby Brown.

Houston's family believes Brown, a former R&B singer, is responsible for introducing her to drugs and is to blame for her sorry life.

Houston was at her peak when she met Brown in 1989. Her album, Whitney, had sold 19 million copies and gave her No.1 hits on both sides of the Atlantic.

The couple married in 1992, the same year Houston became a movie star in The Bodyguard with Kevin Costner and produced the No.1 song from the film, I Will Always Love You. Over the next six years, the hits continued, along with a promising movie career.

In 1998, Brown was jailed for several driving offences while under the influence of drugs.

Two years later, Houston was reportedly rushed to hospital after blood began pouring from her nose. The same year she was found carrying cannabis at a Hawaii airport.

And there were reports of physical confrontations between her and Brown.

In 2003, Houston admitted Brown beat her and a year later he faced charges of attacking her at their mansion. But Houston forgave Brown and he walked from court a free man.

Since then, Houston has been in and out of rehabilitation clinics, including one last year on the Caribbean island of Antigua -- while her husband checked into a nearby hotel and had an affair with a waitress.

Since being released from the Antiguan clinic, Houston has been seen wandering the streets in expensive fur coats over pyjamas -- shuffling along the pavements, her hair wild and unkempt and her sunken eyes rimmed deep black. A motorist said she was "like a bag lady in an expensive coat . . . she looked horrible".

This week's reports seem to indicate a final, tragic act in this once famous singer's downfall is inevitable.

[SouthernFreebird]

Who hasn't known this for years...?

[cyborg]

Oh yes. She needs a godly intervention.

[SkyPilot]

From the Daily News....

The once-gorgeous, velvet-voiced crooner who wooed Kevin Costner in "The Bodyguard" now "spends her days locked in her bedroom amid piles of garbage, smoking crack, using sex toys to satisfy herself and ignoring personal hygiene."

Whitney hallucinates and sees "demons" when she's high. She bites and beats herself black-and-blue but blames the "Devil" for the injuries. "The Devil be hitting me," Whitney reportedly told Brown.

When Whitney's mom, Cissy, forced her to attend rehab sessions in March 2004, Tina Brown says, Whitney smoked crack on the way to the meetings and dodged the urine drug tests saying: "I'm not giving you no pee today. I don't have none right now."

Whitney allegedly loses her $6,000 set of false teeth when she's high and once appeared toothless, scaring the kids at her niece's school.

Whitney smokes as much as an "eight-ball" (1/8 of an ounce) of crack at a time, mixing it with marijuana encased in a cigar wrapper, according to Tina Brown.

In 2004, a drug dealer called Bobby Brown and ordered him to remove the paranoid and out-of-control Whitney from his crack house. "Come get your wife. I'm sick of this b----," the dealer reportedly complained.

Addiction is something straight from hell itself. Only God can rescue her now. The real God, an not her "Kaila."

I still remember her going on TV with Diane Sawyer and saying "Crack is wack!"

It was so transparent.

A bit of a reminder of what she used to be.

[tuffydoodle]

I'm really boring, I don't consume alcoholic beverages, either. Used to but as I've gotten older it just doesn't agree with me anymore.

[dandiegirl]

I have a good friend that died from doing crack she just couldn't quit. She was only 42. We would hear terrible stories about where she would spend the night. It was very sad.

[Vicomte13]

No, Tylenol does nothing for me.
When I have a headache, which is daily, a Tylenol...or 5 Tylenol...has absolutely no effect on it. None.
I am convinced that there is no active ingredient in Tylenol.
But aspirin?
Plain old bitter aspirin - if I chew up a couple, the headache is gone rapidly.

[ordinaryguy]

She can make a comeback IF she stays alive.

Some singers might ruin their vocal cords with that level of drug use.

[Revolting cat!]

I dunno about all this, but I hope the celebrities (known for being known) are praying for me...

[Reddy]

This is too sad. I used to think she was one of the most beautiful women in the world. Now she is so ravaged by drug use, inside and out. May she get the help she needs.

[Revolting cat!]

Ibuprofen does it for me, and with prescription strength - 800mg or so, I even get a little buzz!

[SkyPilot]

Hard to believe the transformation.

I know. Look at this series of mugshots of a girl. In the course of 14 short years, she went from a beautiful 16 year old girl to what you see here.

She died at age 30 shortly after the last picture was taken.

[Fred Hayek]

She looks at least in her late 40's in the last shot.

[fabriclady]

"Man, what drugs will do to you."

I doubt there is a lot of difference in drugs and alcohol. My oldest brother was a millionaire, around 1980, he began to drink a lot, in a short time he was spending weeks at a time in his house, DRUNK. Abused his wife so that she finally fled with the 6 children. He sold his business, everything spent for liquor. Today he a broken old man at 73, living on Social Security. My Mother's heart was broken, she prayed until God called her home.
The family hurts the most.

[Huck]

You are so right. I've seen people's lives completely demolished by cocaine. That's why, even though I've smoked boatloads of grass, taken LSD, eaten mushrooms, and even tried opium once, I never touched cocaine. Not a single time. And I had plenty of chances. But to me, it's pretty easy to see what particular drugs will do. Just look at the people using them. Heroin is probably even worse, although cocaine seems to be right up there. Meth is another total destroyer. Then again, I've honestly seen people destroy themselves with booze, too. Maybe a little slovenly, a little paranoid even, but never destroyed.

[angcat]

Whitney allegedly loses her $6,000 set of false teeth when she's high and once appeared toothless, scaring the kids at her niece's school.

Why does she have false teeth?

[SkyPilot]

I doubt there is a lot of difference in drugs and alcohol.

I agree. Alcohol is a drug, and a very, very powerful one at that. It is also the most abused drug in the US.

[SkyPilot]

Why does she have false teeth?

I dunno, I was hoping someone could answer that.

[al baby]

It is sad I am a few days shy of 5 years clean and sober better her than me God Bless her though

[al baby]

It is sad I am a few days shy of 5 years clean and sober better her than me God Bless her though

[cyborg]

Hopefully, someday she'll be where you are now! It's not easy.