Whitney Houston fell from the stage while performing on The Oprah Winfrey Show following a relapse into drug use.
Relapsing
Speaking at a Cannes Lions presentation on Tuesday, the program’s host revealed the distressing moment happened during a September 2009 episode. This was the singer’s final appearance before her death in February 2012 following an accidental drowning in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, Beverly Hills, aged 48.
According to Variety, Oprah, 72, told festival chair Phil Thomas, “We did the whole, ‘Hey girl, how you doing?’ greeting thing, and then I stopped the cameras and I went behind stage and I said, ‘So tell me, what do you want to happen here? And I’m gonna tell you what I want to happen here.'”
“And that was one of the most powerful interviews.”
But when Whitney returned, she had relapsed in her drug addiction.
Oprah continued, “This was an amazing thing that happened. I had such trust from the Oprah Show audience that Whitney did, I think, what was her last show with us, and she had gone back on drugs.”
“The first interview I did with her when we’d gone behind stage, and I asked about her intentions; she was clean. But the day she came to my show to perform in front of the audience, she was not, and she fell off of the stage.”
Falling Off the Stage
Oprah “begged” the audience not to tip off the media about the story to protect the I Will Always Love You hitmaker.
The media mogul continued, “I knew that if that story got out that she’d fallen off the stage, she would be completely destroyed by that.”
“And so even though the audience was there, and the audience had cameras, I begged them not to put those pictures up because it would ruin her life, and they did not.”
Oprah added to the audience during the presentation, “That would not happen today, I can tell you that.”
During Whitney’s last appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in September 2009, the six-time Grammy winner performed her track, I Didn’t Know My Own Strength, which appeared on her final album, I Look to You.
Brandy’s Phone Call
Before Whitney passed away, she had a three-hour phone call with her pal, Brandy, in which the Greatest Love of All artist vowed to “be better” and was hunting for “redemption” after a turbulent few years.
The call came as Whitney was set to attend the late executive and record producer Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy awards party.
In an extract from Brandy’s new book Phases: A Memoir, published by New York Magazine, she wrote, “For three precious hours, we talked …”
“There were flashes of the old Whitney in that conversation. I heard it in her raspy laugh that erupted unexpectedly like sunshine after rain, in the way she scattered ‘baby’ and ‘sweetie’ throughout her sentences like musical notes, in how she returned every topic – no matter how dark – back to faith.”
“She spoke of getting back in the studio, of the redemption waiting just around the corner with Sparkle, the long-delayed remake of the 1976 film she’d put on the back burner after we lost Aaliyah, who she’d handpicked for the lead role.”
“‘I’m gonna be better’, she promised as our call wound down, and in that moment, I believed her with every fiber of my being. ‘You’ll see. This is just a season, not the whole story?'”
“… couldn’t have known then that her words were both a prophecy and farewell. ‘I love you, Whitney,’ I said before hanging up. ‘I love you more, baby girl,’ she replied. ‘Always have, always will. I can’t wait to see y’all sing the house down on Saturday.'”