Whitney Houston's Tell All Interview With Oprah

Posted on September 15, 2009 - 12:03am by tammy Whitney Houston will be appearing on Oprah for in exclusive tell all interview. In her interview Whitney talks about her drug addiction, her harmful marriage, and the moments when she knew she needed to get out. Here are the highlights from the interview. To read the full interview click here. Oprah: There's a wonderful quote by the L.A. Times. They said, "The pain, andfrankly, disgust that so many pop fans felt during Houston's decline was caused not so much by her personal distress as by her seemingly careless treatment of the national treasure that happened to reside within her." ... You were not like any of the others. You really were given the voice. You were given that treasure. And people felt, how could you not know that that was to be treasured? Whitney: I knew in the days when I was a teenager singing for God. I was so sure. When I became "Whitney Houston" and all this other stuff that happened, my life became the world's. My privacy. My business. Who I was with. Who I married. And I was, like, that's not fair. I wanted to go to the park. I wanted to walk down the street with my husband, hand in hand, without somebody looking at us or having the media always in my business. ... I just wanted to be normal. O: It's so interesting that you would say that because for years I have thought that, in many ways, the Whitney Houston that we have seen has been a creation of the media. That obviously your voice and your talent is what it is. But the gowns, the hair, that first video, all of that stuff was a creation. W: Yes. ... I love to get dressed up and I love to do makeup and hair and stuff, but that was my performance. That was my entertainment. O: Was marrying Bobby a way to be out? W: [Nods.] In a sense, because he allowed me to be me. He was fun. Passionate. Loving. It was crazy. We were crazy love. O: But there were so many people who felt because the image had been painted. There you are in the gowns and the this and the red carpet. ... Was that strategic on your part? W: The princess marries the bad boy. ... It really wasn't. I was at the Soul Train awards show. He came on the stage singing My Prerogative. He was fly. He could move, man... Bobby was more like: "Hey, check this out,I want to ask you something, you know? If I was to ask you to go out with me, would you say yeah?" I said: "Yeah, I would. I certainly would." And then from that moment on, we clicked. We were friends. Three years we went out before we got married. Three years we dated. Jet-setted all over the world doing what we wanted to do. O: And the fact that everybody thought, "What is the princess doing with this guy?" W: They don't have any idea about that sweet, gentle tenderness about him that nobody knew. He was a very quiet person. When that entertainer came out onstage, he did that thing. But at home, he was very much the father. He was very much the man. He was very much in control. I liked that because I was in control of all my stuff, and here he comes along and everybody was like, "Wow, she's got somebody now." When he said something, I listened. I was very interested in having someone have that control over me. It was refreshing. O: It was refreshing because in every other aspect of your life W: I was in control. O: When did it start to go wrong? Can there be too much passion? W: Yeah, it can clash. ... After The Bodyguard. 1993, 1994, 1995 were filled with The Bodyguard years. That album lasted me. It went for a long ways. I was on a whirlwind by that point in time. I was going everywhere. That record was so huge. So I had my baby. I had my baby in my hands, and I had the man of my life that I loved so very much who I was crazy for with me. And he had just put everything aside of his own, and just said: "I'll go with you. Don't worry about it. Go do this thing." I think somewhere inside something happens to a man when a woman has that much control or has that much fame. ... If he doesn't have his own. O: Was he jealous of you? W: He's not going to like this, but yes. O: Then did you try to overcompensate? W: I tried to play down all the time. I did. I tried to play: "I'm Mrs. Brown, everybody. Don't call me Ms. Houston." O: Were you happy? W: No. ... I wasn't happy with the marriage. ... I was losing me into that by trying to be pleasing. O: Were you also trying tobecause the world had saidit wouldn't last six minuteswere you also trying to prove the world wrong? W: I was determined to prove them wrong. So determined. And after awhile, you start to lose what the real concept is of the love. And you want to make a statement. I was trying to make a statement. Like: "You guys aren't gonna win. You're not going to do that. We got married. We were in love. We were crazy for each other. We're wanted to have a family. I'm just not going to let you do that to us. I'm just not." And so was he. He was determined. We fought for that. And then somehow it got really kind of messy and got lost up in there. And then we started doing other things that entered into the marriage that you just can't come out straight when you've got a lot of outside stuff going on. O: When did the drugs start? W: Before The Bodyguard it was very light. After The Bodyguard, I had Krissy, it started getting heavy. O: What was your drug of choice? W: Cocaine. And marijuana. That's it... We were lacing our marijuana with base. We weren't on crack. We weren't on no crack stuff. We weren't buying $20 jumbos. We were paying money. We were buying kilos and ounces and ounces. We would have our stash. But he liked to drink. I wasn't a drinker. The alcoholism, that's an ugly thing. Either you're going to be a really nice alcoholic or a really mean one. He was really mean. O: So, he never touched you. W: No. O: Never laid his hands on you. W: He slapped me once, but he got hit over the head three times. O: By you? W: Yeah. Because I was, like, "Okay, you're going too far." O: What's the worst thing he ever said to you that you can share? W: I just remember this moment. It was his birthday, and I gave him a party at a club in Atlanta, Buckhead. He drank a lot that night. He drank a lot. And for some reason, everything that I did I tried to do to make him happyit would turn on me. It was weird. Today, I understand it because people that alcoholics love, they try to abuse. So when we got back to the househe's going to hate that I say thisbut he spit on me. And my daughter was coming down the stairs, and she saw it. That was pretty intense. Because I didn't grow up with that, and I didn't understand why that occurred. But he had such a hate in his eyes for me. Because I loved him so much. He cursed me all the way home in front of his parents, and then he spit on me. O: How did you feel? W: I was horrified.He spit on me, in my face. O: Was that a turning point for you, or did you wake up the next morning and push that down or place that someplace in your psyche? W: I was very hurt. Very angry. And I knew somebody, somewhere, something was going to blow. I called a friend. I said, "Come get me now because it's at a turning point now," and I was almost two feet out the door at that point in time. I was ready to go. And I asked [my friend] to come get me, and [Bobby] pushed me against the wall ... I was on the phone and I went back in and I took the phone and I hit him over the head with it. He just fell out on the floor. It was just drama. My daughter came down the stairs. She's, like, "Daddy?" O: Blood? W: Yeah. "Mom, what did you," [her daughter asked]. I said,"I told him not to do it." I kept saying, "I told him not to do this. I told him not to dothis."It was just one of those moments. It was just hateful. Ugly. O: When did you know that that marriage was not gonna work? W: I just knew. I was like, "You don't smell right. You don't look right. Something's going on." And then all this other stuff started coming out about him being with this one or that one or being too promiscuous. Dragging dirt into my home.