Whitney Houston talks about the men in her life - and the rumors, lies and insults that are the high price of fame - interview

Ebony, May, 1991 by Lynn Norment

As Whitney Houston has painfully discovered, the price of fame is high. Real high.

Since 1985, she has skyrocketed from an unknown church choir and backup singer to a bona fide superstar with 32 million record sales, three multiplatinum albums and nine consecutive No. 1 hits.

But the acclaim, fame and wealth that have made Whitney Houston a household name have been laced with biting criticism, lies, insults and rumors. One week the tabloids raise questions about her sexual preferences; the next week they say she is pregnant by Eddie Murphy, while the third week they report she is marrying star quarterback Randall Cunningham.

Black disc jockeys have chided her for "not having soul" and being "too White," while other critics say she is "too distant" and "impersonal." She was booed at the Soul Train Music Awards, and Keenen Ivory Wayans' In Living Color spoofed "Whitney Houston's Rhythmless Nation."

It's enough to drive a good Christian girl to drink, drugs or at least to cursing. But not Whitney. Though it hurts her deeply, she handles it all with aplomb. During a candid, wide-ranging interview in her 26th floor, north Miami Beach condo overlooking the Atlantic, she talks - and laughs - about success and the pain of fame.

"Picture this," she says, curling up on the plush beige sofa in her pink-accented living room. "You wake up every day with a magnifying glass over you. Someone always is looking for something - somebody, somewhere is speaking your name every five seconds of the day, whether it's positive or negative. Like my friend Michael [Jackson] says, |You want our blood but you don't want our pain.'"

What has hurt her deeply are allegations that she lacks rhythm and soul. "They might have said, |Whitney's Danceless Nation,'" she says of the spoof. "But rhythmless? No! Not in a million years. How could I come from where I've come [from] and be rhythmless?

"And don't say I don't have soul or what you consider to be |Blackness.' I know what my color is. I was raised in a Black community with Black people, so that has never been a thing with me. Yet, I've gotten flak about being a pop success, but that doesn't mean that I'm White..... Pop music has never been all-White."

It is a criticism that disturbs Whitney, but she is not bitter. "My success happened so quickly that when I first came out, Black people felt |she belongs to us,'" she says, still trying to understand why some Blacks lashed out at her. "And then all of a sudden the big success came and they felt I wasn't theirs anymore, that I wasn't within their reach. It was felt that I was making myself more accessible to Whites, but I wasn't."

Concerning the booing at the Soul Train Awards, Whitney has concluded that because she had won two Grammies, two Emmies, and 11 Ameriocan Music Awards, "They [some people in the audience] had just gotten sick of me and just didn't want me to win another award. No, it does not make you feel good," she adds. "I don't like it and I don't appreciate it, but I just kind of write it off as ignorance."

Of all the rumors, Whitney is most irked - and hurt - by allegations that she is involved in an affair with her close friend and executive assistant, Robyn Crawford. "I realize that this thing has been fueled by the fact that I'm very private with my life," she says. "I don't make it my business to expose my relationships; it's hard enough just to keep one. So I figured that since people didn't know who I was sleeping with, they just assumed I was sleeping with Robyn."

Whitney and Robyn became friends while teens in East Orange, N.J., where Robyn was an All-State basketball star and Whitney was a shy, aspiring singer and a favorite target of innercity bullies. "I didn't like to fight," she says, munching on golden fried shrimp and fruit salad. "I was not outspoken and really outgoing. Robyn was. They [other girls] always wanted to whip me for no reason. So once Robyn became my big sister, all that ended."

Their friendship has continued over the years, and as Whitney pursued a singing career, Robyn became invaluable as advisor and organizer.

"I've had boyfriends all my life - very good-looking and very fine young men," Whitney says. "And I've had great relationships. But I've never been one to have five relationships at the same time. I get no enjoyment out of that. You know, I was raised as a Christian, and my mother was very strict with me as far as boys were concerned. She told me that the way to a man's heart is not by opening your legs. You let him get to know you first.

"All that stuff has stayed with me, and it has worked for me, because it has allowed me to know that this is mine!" she says, pointing her slender index fingers inward for emphasis. "It is better to preserve yourself because nobody likes anything that's old and worn out." She laughs exuberantly.

To the media she declares: "You don't live with me every day! So how can you say that this is what I am or what I do?"

For her 26th birthday, Whitney threw a big bash at her $11 million Morris County, N.J., estate that has an Olympic-size swimming pool, tennis court and 32-track recording studio. Among the many celebrity guests was Eddie Murphy, long rumored to be her heartthrob.