Sometimes, even after our loved ones are gone away from here, there are secrets and skeletons that still live on until we bury them. Whitney Houston was America’s princess and one of the world’s most talented female vocalist.
Growing up, Whitney Houston didn’t have many friends and it wasn’t all that easy for her to make friends. She was teased a lot and bullied by other girls. She has shared on numerous occasions how girls were just flat out mean to her. But she found a friend, a saviour almost…in Robyn Crawford. Robyn was not only Whitney’s closest friend, but she was her body guard at times, handled her bookkeeping, and assisting her with the many duties of managing to be a star. As a matter of fact, from the moment Crawford, then 19, first saw Whitney (then almost 17) in 1980 when they were both counselors at an East Orange, New Jersey summer camp, she told her, “I’m going to look out for you.” And that’s exactly what she did for the next two decades as Whitney climbed the ladder to stardom.
“We wanted to be together,” says Crawford, “and that meant just us.” Whitney ended the physical part of their relationship, soon after she signed a record deal with Clive Davis at Arista. The singer broke the news by giving Crawford a gift of a slate blue Bible one day in 1982.”She said we shouldn’t be physical anymore”, “because it would make our journey even more difficult.”
“She said if people find out about us, they would use this against us,” says Crawford, “and back in the 80’s that’s how it felt.”
And so, she says, “I kept it safe. I found comfort in my silence.” “I wanted to lift her legacy, give her respect and share the story of who she was before the fame, and in that, to embrace our friendship,” said Crawford.
Bobby Brown, Houston’s ex husband told US Weekly in 2018 that Whitney was bisexual, and that she and Crawford carried on a same sex relationship for years behind closed doors. But Houston was afraid of judgement from her fans, and society, period if she came out with her truth. She also endured judgement from her mom, Cissy Houston, telling her occasionally that it wasn’t natural for women just to be that close.
Consequently, Houston and Crawford denied their relationship and the rumors…until now. The memoir is available currently, published by Penguin Random House.