The awards, the gossip, the glory: Whitney's wild and wonderful year

Ebony, July, 1994 by Lynn Norment

July is a month of celebration at the Whitney Houston-Bobby Brown household. Two years ago this month, Houston, the darling diva with the golden voice, exchanged "til death do us part" wedding vows with Brown, the hip-hop recording artist with the bad-boy image, in the celebrity wedding of the decade.

Since that hot July day, the couple have experienced individual career highs but also their share of sizzling media attention, with outrageous stories about their relationship frequently appearing in the tabloids. Among other stories, the rag sheets reported, under the banner "Battered Whitney," that a "2:30 a.m. hotel screaming match turns violent." There is also the story that proclaimed, "Whitney Catches Hubby With Sexy Beauty In Hotel Room," after which, the tabloids reported, she declared the marriage was over.

Both Whitney and Bobby say both stories are "total lies," just like previous stories about marital disharmony. She emphasizes that other than the little spats all couples experience, they love each other and are very happy.

"I know that they [the media] are trying to make my husband out to be this man who has no respect for his wife or his family, who has no respect for his marriage, who has no respect for too much of anything -- but they're very wrong," she says, leaning back in a comfortable chair in her Nippy, Inc., offices in New Jersey just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. "And they are playing on the fact that Bobby and I, no matter what people think or what the media will say, we're happy together. And we like being together. . .. We love each other."

Indeed, it does seem that some journalists as well as a number of fans refuse to accept the fact that the beautiful, poised and polished princess of pop could love and many hip-hop rapper Bobby Brown, the father of three children born out of wedlock who can't seem to live down his reputation as a womanizer.

In the two years since their elaborate nuptials at her posh New Jersey estate, Whitney's career has continued to soar above the clouds of rumors and controversy The 30-year-old singer made a successful debut into film with The Bodyguard; the movie's soundtrack sold a record million copies in a single week and to date has sold 28 million albums worldwide. Since the movie's debut in 1992, Whitney has toured nonstop, taking her spine-tingling vocal performance around the world, playing to audiences of 65,000 and 50,000 in Brazil, 40,000 in Denmark and 30,000 in Japan.

Back home in the U.S., the enormously popular entertainer swept all the awards shows this year, sashaying away with three Grammys, eight American Music Awards, including Award of Merit; five NAACP Image Awards; two Soul Train Music Awards, including the Sammy Davis Jr. Entertainer of the Year Award; and 11 Billboard Music Awards. She even participated in the Academy Awards ceremony.

Despite being virtually ubiquitous, Whitney somehow balances her escalating career with marriage and motherhood, most times taking her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, now a year old, on the road with her, while coordinating her travel schedule with that of her husband. The energetic working woman got engaged just before the movie began filming, and walked down the aisle just before it was released. At the height of the ensuing media blitz, she had her baby. And two months after delivery she started rehearsals for a world tour.

Yes, it has been a phenomenal year (make that life,) for Whitney Houston, who signed with Arista Records at age 19 and released a string of hits that established her as pop music's premiere songstress. But she says it is a misconception that she never has down periods. "Everybody thinks that because you have this so-called fame and fortune, you have the so-called good life. It is a good life," she says, animated as she leans forward. "God knows that when he blesses you, you are blessed. But sometimes you work for that life. You pay a price for that life, and all of a sudden it isn't the |good life' so much. It becomes an |all right' life. There's a lot of stuff I can do without."

Topping the list is whit Whitney calls the "constant taking advantage of people in the limelight by the media." In fact, the media "overkill" is so "draining" that she sometimes feels, "God, I'm sick of myself," she says.

Again, she refers to the tabloids' "battered Whitney" story. "We have a regular marriage like everybody else, and we go through our thing," she says. "We argue. We love hard, we fight hard, but it's us. They say I took Bobby to the bathroom at the Soul Train Awards and told him off and all kinds of crazy things. I would never do that. That's not even my style."

She says that it does indeed "bother us" that the media would "say things so horrible and negative about a person which is totally untrue.... How many people read that stuff and go, |Yeah, he's a real burn?'" But, she insists, "It was a total, total lie that Bobby and I were fighting, that the police came."

Whitney emphasizes that while she and Bobby have their share of disagreements, there are never physical altercations. "Me, a battered woman? Girl, please. No!" she responds. "Because [if that were the case] the next thing the media will say is, |Whitney has left.' I wouldn't stay around to be beaten; that's not what I'm there for.