Whitney Houston dead at 48; thoughts?

Oh no. I didn’t know. I loved her in The Body Guard. I hope she is at peace now.

I was just thinking she let her daughter down big time. I’m guessing drugs or heart from drugs.

Whatever the reason. It’s sad, very sad. She had such a tremendous, beautiful voice. I’ve seen plenty of drag queens lip sync many of her songs.

Good night, sweet prince.

Oh I wanna dance with somebody
I wanna feel the heat with somebody
Yeah I wanna dance with somebody
With somebody who loves me….

(My g/f: “maybe, she was having a pre-Grammy party (drugs).” Too soon?)

I’m shocked, even though I read in another thread that she had emphysema.

Did she get the emphysema from smoking tobacco or something else?

From the other night. She was messed up.

Life is a gift, life is precious. What God has given, God can take away.
Whitney was brought up in the tradition believing in this but somehow…
she lost her way.
How sad.

“Crack is whack.”

Did she ever divorce Bobby Brown? That guy was a loser.

Say no to drugs, kids.

And Bobby still lives.

Just add another one of the entertainers that could not shake the drug monkey of their back.

They have no one to blame, but themselves.

This is the first I’m hearing this. I loved her music.

Her singing of the Star Spangled Banner after 9/11 was simply unforgettable.

I was listening to urban NYC stations just now in the car, and it’s all over the radio. They’re definitely going to be talking about her at the Grammys tomorrow! They said on the radio that she won her first Grammy in 1985. I was the one that said she had emphysema. That would seriously impact her music career, and I wonder if some part of her was suicidal, knowing that her snging career was going to be majorly compromised, if not over, with the emphysema. She had an incredible voice, and she was beautiful. It’s so sad, she was so young. Way too young to die. When I heard the news, I was shocked the way I was when I heard Michael Jackson died. I am very sad now and I know we’ll hear a lot about her in the next few days. When I was in high school and in my 20’s, her songs were all over the radio – i mean ALL OVER the radio.

Sad. I really don’t know anything about her, I don’t follow celebrities, but she did have a beautiful voice. Did she just die today?

So Sad. Such a beautiful voice. Such a troubled soul.

last performance!

@Coloma: She was pronounced dead at 3:55 pm Pacific time today. She was found in her room at the Beverly Hills Hotel and paramedics tried to revive her but could not. I am guessing she was dead at the scene. Of course, there is an investigation, and I’m sure in a few weeks we’ll get autopsy and toxicology results. I remember when Rick James died – it was shocking, also, but he didn’t have half the hits that Whitney did. I grew up in an urban area so all these people were popular for me and my friends.

I heard she was on the Today Show about a year ago and could not hit the high notes (probably because she had the emphysema and probably did not know it at that point) and her daughter had to help her out.

I had a life-size poster of her on my wall. I thought that she had a beautiful voice, but, mostly she was stunning. I was 16 and saw her perform in Detroit.

I’m still in shock.

Ah yes, I just read a bit about her drug struggles, well it is hardly anything new that so many mega talented people go down that path of self destruction, the creative demons seem to get a hold of a lot of really talented peeps. RIP Whitney.

she denied any problem to the end:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdl7pPYZ3oE

They suspect emphysema.

she lost her voice and hard a hard time singing in concert. That is hard. She is a beautiful soul.

She did divorce Bobby Brown in 2007, I believe.

Popular singer descends into a world of drugs that ruins career. Singer becomes a living punchline as people and media focus more and more on the increasingly erratic behavior. Singer dies and everyone weeps at the loss.

see Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, and now Whitney Houston

Yessss! I win again.

Sorry. I seldom feel more saddened by celebrity deaths than I do for peons. But I did outlive her. w00t.

I’m sad and shocked but not surprised as she has been struggling for years.

She was the singer that prompted me to train my voice as high as I could get it.

I’m a child of the 70s and 80s and her music often touched me.

Whitney, like Amy Winehouse, was an easy target of mockery when they were alive, but, like Amy, when she died I am filled with a feeling of such loss. She had an incredible voice. She was a hit machine back in the 80’s, and she rocked Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman

My 17 yr old son knew about this before his parents did. and he doesn’t even know who Whitney is! :P

I was watching SNL when I found out Whitney died and all I could think about was Maya Rudolph impersonating Whitney, saying “Bobby B?!?.....Bobby B?”.

@Jude That was a sad clip. No one has said whether it was suicide or drugs yet but I’m guessing it was probably drugs. I thought she had finally cleaned up but it didn’t look like it from the pics you posted. I felt sorry for her since the first time I heard she got hooked on drugs. No doubt Bobby pushed it on her or at least drove her to it. I hope he rots in hell some day soon. I remember when she started. She was strong and elegant and graceful. You could tell she seemed a very trusting person and she trusted the wrong person. She was a great talent. I feel sorry most of all for her family who had to watch her desolve right before their eyes and feel helpless to stop it all from happening.

And a thousand kids died from starvation in Africa today and nobody cared.

I’m sure Sally Struthers did @johnpowell. Quit generalizing. You just need to dig deep.

I didn’t know! My mouth is literally wide open! What a waste, I really don’t know what to say. A heavenly voice has been silenced, may she find the peace she was searching for.

Just sad.

Very sad. I wasn’t a huge fan although, I enjoyed some of her music. As when Amy Winehouse died I am expecting some comments from friends on Facebook about how it was her own fault for being a waster etc but I would ask those people to think how they would feel if it was their daughter, mother or Aunt. I feel incredibly sorry for her daughter in particular. A few years ago I read that a doctor had warned her that if she didn’t kick the habit she would be dead relatively soon. I thought it was just a trashy celebrity magazine embellishing things as usual but whether their source was reliable or not, it turned out to be true.

I feel sad. I loved her work. I have never, before or after, heard anyone come close to her performance of the Star Spangled Banner in 1991.

@johnpowell Oh please—that’s like our mother saying eat your turnips because children are starving in Africa. Stupid and irrelevant.

My clock radio woke me up with the news this morning. I was a bit shocked, she was a lovely girl with a lovely voice.

Druggies die early. She wasn’t the first and she won’t be the last.

It’s very sad. It’s always sad when someone with so much talent and beauty can’t seem to find happiness. It makes you wonder what demons they were fighting. Yes, she had a drug addiction but what made her turn to drugs to begin with and why wasn’t she able to stay clean? We don’t really know what was going on in her head, or what it was that caused her suffering.

It is really weird but 2 days ago I must have heard one of her songs playing and it just got stuck in my head and I kept singing it to myself all day long. I hadn’t thought of her music much since the eighties. The song was How Will I Know?
I posted the video link on Ucme‘s Question about song titles in the form of questions.
This is how I want to remember her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3-hY-hlhBg

I was never fond of her music, but she did have an amazing voice. I hate to see anyone die so young, but her drug addiction won it seems. Very sad.

Sooooooooo sad. Such a waste of such an incredible, stunning talent.

Edit so sorry I hate it when people only talk about the talent of the person when they die. “Incredible waste” period.

The real tragedy is what her poor daughter is going through. The selfishness of addiction has such far reaching effects. Addicts always burn down the whole house, not just their own little room of misery. Poor, poor daughter who is now hospitalized for “stress.”
Stress? Stress doesn’t even begin to cover what this poor young woman is experiencing.

@MollyMcGuire “Stupid and irrelevant.”? Not in the least. Why not show how it is irrelevant? “Stupid” doesn’t add to your arguement at all.

@Coloma Sadly, there are pics on the Net of her daughter doing Coke at age 17. I do sincerely hope family & friends will direct this now 18 yr old on a better path.

@SpatzieLover Yes, just sad. :-(

@SpatzieLover The photos are fake.

@Jude Whether or not the photos on the Net/Enquirer are real or not, she has had some serious issues including: underage drinking, a stay in a psych-ward due to her suicide attempt and drugs.

@SpatzieLover No, I agree, she has issues. I feel badly for her. Bobby Brown as a Dad and Whitney, the way that she was, the daughter has had no proper guidance. I hope that she’s able to get it together and get some help.

I agree.
I had parents that weren’t great influences. I think Bobbi has a chance. But the window of oppportunity to have her turn into a productive, secure adult is small. She needs a strong, positive influence to grab ahold of her pronto.

Wasteful and sad.

I feel bad for the daughter because not only did she lose her mom at such a young age, but now she has to look at her dad and know that everyone says that the dad is the reason for the mom’s downfall. Now she has to deal with that.

It’s a terrible jumble of emotions. I cried when I heard the news. I feel for her daughter. I’m angry that she let herself slide into such an awful lifestyle. I’m saddened that her lifestyle likely killed her. I’m saddened by the fact that people will likely listen to her music more now that she’s dead. I’m depressed that I’ll never hear a new song from her. I’m hopeful since I’m a believer that she’s in heaven. I’m happy that she enjoyed so many amazing things before she died, but sad that she died so young….... the whole thing is just awful.

Has Bobby Brown commented on her death?

It was reported he is not coping well with the news and is ‘struggling’.

Isn’t his life pretty much a permanent struggle?

I suspect so yes @bob_ It is apparently even more of a struggle at the moment though.

How very sad. She had a wonderful voice.

Celebrities need a new mission in life once they’ve reached the peak of their popularity. They should follow the Bill Gates example. Doing good will help them stay away from drugs and alcohol abuse.

I wonder if there’s going to be a backlash against Bobby Brown now because even though you can’t blame someone for someone else’s downfall, Whitney’s drug use seems to have started with her relationship with Bobby Brown.

Then again @jca, nobody was in any doubt about who Bobby Brown was so you could argue it started long before that. The fact that she chose him for a partner says something about who she was and the place she was in. That in itself was fairly self-destructive behaviour. Didn’t people go “she is seeing who?” at the time? It was never going to end well.

I agree with @mattbrowne. We could all take a leaf from Bill’s book I think (I wouldn’t mind taking a few $ bills along with the leaf though).

Very sad. It’s unfair to blame Whitney Houston’s friends or family. When a person is that lost or in denial, they won’t listen to anyone else; they will just cut that person out of their life. Our mental health system says you can temporarily restrain one who is a danger to self or others, but how often does that work in real life? And for how long? I am very sad for her daughter in particular. She is too young to suffer such a loss, regardless of what the cause is, which we assume we know; but that’s still an assumption at this point.