A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston

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To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Houston would continue to be jealous as well, but not when Crawford dated men, only when she became close to women. Precisely what more, and how more, and when more, has been the subject of speculation since the beginning of Houston's career. I feel oddly protective of it, like if you didn't love her, then you don't deserve to read Robyn's re-telling of their lives together.

On that day in 1983 when 19-year-old Houston visited Crawford and gave her a Bible, the two women inscribed the book with lines testifying to their feelings for each other. I think she slapped my face because she felt that I had done something, and she wanted me to know that I’d earned that slap.

Crawford smoked weed with Houston and was introduced to cocaine, and reflected that it wasn't a difficult decision to eventually quit using substance altogether-- though this wasn't the case for Houston, who spent years battling substance addiction. Whitney, on the other hand, seems determined to be successful at all costs, and I think one of those costs ended up being the loss of Robyn by her side. Her experiences with homophobia didn't just concern her own life and romantic relationships: her uncle was gay, and so was her brother.

With robyn's account you begin to understand how whitney went from being a carefree, happy, excited teen who was finding herself and figuring herself out to an addict. Reading the book you get a sense of the deep love and admiration that Robyn felt for her friend, Whitney.

Bobby knew that Whitney loved him, but he also knew she wasn't in love with him and only married him to shrug off the gay rumours.

I felt compelled to stand up at that point, not only to lift her legacy, but to honour our friendship, because friends aren’t something that you should just toss away.Throughout the book, Houston's parents usually avoided direct and open communication, and may have been in denial about Whitney's sexual orientation, her disturbing marriage to Bobby Brown (m. It is a strength of her book that it evokes with such clarity a different era of stardom – one in which singers like Houston, Michael Jackson and Madonna dominated fewer media outlets, and at a higher voltage, than stars in today’s atomised media. Homophobia played its part here because Whitney was torn - she was convinced by people that her career would be ruined if she was open about her relationship with Robyn. Whitney and Robyn's love was hidden and although people around them were happy to "allow" Robyn to be openly gay, they would not extend that "permission" to Whitney - oh no, the record company and her Mother would not permit it. Despite the very different settings, both stories find gifted teenage girls enjoying the ecstasy of first love while facing the challenges and confusion of same-sex attraction in a homophobic society; both touch on the draw and the drag of drugs; and both are about musicians discovering their promise and power.

When she finally accepted, Crawford could see why Costner related to Houston and knew the star had to be her. The book is named after a Temptations song the two friends used to listen to at the first apartment they shared. And since Robyn met Whitney in her teens, and was with her for 20 years, it is understandable that Whitney would be a part of her story. I need someone that I know loves me for me,” Houston once said of Crawford and as the star’s celebrity increased, Crawford became one of the very few people she could trust. You know what we shared," said Houston, telling Crawford they had to end their physical relationship.The warping effect of denial isn’t easily shrugged off and there is an overwhelming sense, both in the book and in person, of someone running a gamut of internal barriers. I had planned to hate it because I’m a huge Whitney fan and I was worried it would be disrespectful. A Song for You gives an insight into Whitney and Robyn's private friendship, from two young girls to Whitney's rise to fame and downfall into drugs. Reading her book, one gets the chilling sense not only of how alien things were in the very recent past, but of a story that shouldn’t be repeated in the future. It was the summer of 1980, and both young women were running youth activities at a community center in their shared hometown of East Orange, New Jersey.