BY: Walker
Published 3 years ago
It took Brandy time to cope with Whitney Houston’s passing.
via: Page Six
“It’s natural for people to want to place blame. I placed a lot of blame on a lot of people too, when it came to Whitney,” the “Boy Is Mine” singer, 42, writes in the foreword of journalist Gerrick Kennedy’s new book, “Didn’t We Almost Have It All: In Defense of Whitney Houston,” out Tuesday.
“We loved her so much and needed something or someone to attach blame to because it was so hard to accept that she was gone.”
Brandy notes she ultimately realized that only Houston herself knew what it was like to walk in her shoes.
“We don’t really have the right to speak on anything that she had to go through in her life,” she writes. “No one knows what she was running from. No one knows what she was trying to overcome. No one knows the costs that came with being Whitney Houston. That level of fame, that level of expectation, that level of pressure.”
The “I Will Always Love You” singer died at age 48 on Feb. 11, 2012, which was Brandy’s 33rd birthday.
Houston had been found unconscious in the bathtub of her Beverly Hilton hotel suite and was pronounced dead soon after. The coroner later revealed that she had accidentally drowned, listing heart disease and cocaine use as contributing factors.
The powerhouse vocalist’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, met a similarly tragic fate when her partner, Nick Gordon, discovered her facedown in a tub at their home on Jan. 31, 2015. Brown was placed in a coma and died in hospice care at age 22 on July 26, 2015.
Gordon was found legally responsible for Brown’s death in September 2016 after her family accused him of giving her a “toxic cocktail” of drugs including morphine and cocaine. He was also ordered to pay $36 million to his late ex’s estate.
Gordon died at age 30 on Jan. 1, 2020, from an accidental heroin overdose.
Bobby Brown, who was married to Houston from 1992 to 2007, has stated that he believes Gordon was also responsible for the death of his ex-wife.
“He was the only one there for both situations with my ex-wife and my daughter, and they both died the exact same way,” the “Every Little Step” singer said on “Red Table Talk” in April 2021 before conceding that it was purely his “opinion.”
Brady is less forthright in Kennedy’s book in regard to who she blames. Instead, she chooses to remember the happier times she shared with Houston.
The “Moesha” alum grew up idolizing the “Bodyguard” actress and finally got a chance to meet her during rehearsals for the 1995 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, which Houston hosted.
“When she embraced me, she embraced me as if she knew me,” Brandy recalls. “And she did know me, because of my music. … Whitney gave me her jacket to wear, and I hung out with her for the whole day. It was a dream, one of the best days of my life.”
Two years later, the pair starred in “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella” on ABC, making Brandy the first black actress to portray the title character.
“First of all, I didn’t realize that I was making history with the role. For me it was, ‘Oh my God, I’m working with Whitney Houston,’” she writes, adding that she was “so happy to be in the same studio” as the Grammy-winning legend.
“Whitney could take you to so many places with just her voice,” Brandy concludes. “She has inspired generations of little girls all over the world to sing from their heart and guts. That was her magic, and that’s her legacy. And we’ll never see another Whitney Houston.”
We still miss Whitney.