Whitney Houston Was ‘Conflicted’ by Her Sexuality: Rosie O’Donnell [Video]

BY: Walker

Published 4 years ago

Rosie O’Donnell has opened up about her memories surrounding Whitney Houston. Appearing on the Hot Takes & Deep Dives podcast this week, the former talk show host and actor looked back on her relationship with the Legend, who died in 2012.

via: New York Post

“Whitney was troubled by, I think, the gay part of her life and didn’t want it exposed,” O’Donnell said of the late music icon’s rumored same-sex orientation.

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In a wide-ranging discussion on the “Hot Takes & Deep Dives” podcast Monday, O’Donnell, 59, claimed the six-time Grammy Award-winning powerhouse was “conflicted” by her conservative cultural values and much-storied bisexuality.

“It’s hard in black culture to accept gayness. It’s culturally more difficult, I think,” the openly gay actress said of Houston — who died in a drug-related accidental drowning at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in February 2012. She was 48.

“And the church … the Baptist Church weighed heavily on her,” O’Donnell added, noting the rigid dichotomy between religion and homosexuality. “Growing up in the church and singing gospel, [for Houston] I think that there was a lot of conflict about that.”

O’Donnell recalled meeting the “I Will Always Love You” chanteuse and her purported girlfriend, Robyn Crawford, at a party in New York.

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She said that at the time, it was understood that Crawford, who was couched as Houston’s childhood friend and personal assistant, was actually the megastar’s “partner.”

Crawford, 60, confirmed long-standing rumors of her hush-hush romance with the “Saving All My Love for You” singer in her 2019 memoir “A Song for You: My Life With Whitney Houston.”

In the book, she said the pop diva ended their love affair to move forward as platonic gal pals when she signed a music deal with Arista Records in 1983.

Houston later married and divorced R&B musician Bobby Brown, who confessed that he knew his wife of 14 years was bisexual in his 2016 autobiography “Every Little Step: My Story.”

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Prior to her cocaine-linked death, Houston never confirmed her alleged queerness.

O’Donnell — who the “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” vocalist once endearingly referred to as her “Irish sister” — went on to discuss Houston’s well-documented battle with addiction.

The Emmy Award-winning talk show host also talked about Houston pulling a no-show 45 minutes before the singer was to sit for an exclusive interview on her live daytime television program “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” back in the late 1990s.

“[Houston] was, at that time, really in a downward spiral with drugs, and it was obvious to anyone who was watching her,” O’Donnell said on the podcast.

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At the time, the troubled singer was set to promote her centerpiece portrayal of the Fairy Godmother in the 1997 television adaptation of “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella,” starring Brandy Norwood. The film was rereleased on the Disney+ streaming platform last month.

“She didn’t show up,” O’Donnell said of Houston’s last-minute cancellation, an infraction she attributed to the celeb’s drug use. “So I said to her crew, ‘This is all on all of you. Because when she dies, everyone is going to ask why you didn’t do something.’ ”

O’Donnell said that later on, “Robyn … had written me and told me that was a very big day for them ? the crew around her ? to think that they had to make inroads to try to help her, and sadly, they didn’t. Or couldn’t.”

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See the clip in full above.

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