Stars react to Whitney Houston's death

>>> news coming to us tonight reported by the associated press, singer whitney houston is dead. again this is according to the associated press, whitney houston was 48 years old, a reigning pop star , we are waiting to find out the cause of her death. she was at her peak in the '80s and '90s. she had a very famous, stormy marriage to another singer, bobby brown , that produced a daughter that you see right there. we're trying to found out again the cause of death . she has had a remarkable, remarkable career. she was actually discovered at 19 by clive davis of arita records, comes from a storied musical family, her mother is the gospel singer sissy houston and famous aunt dionne warwick . breaking news out of the associated press, very sad news for the entertainment industry on this weekend of the grammys. we get word that whitney houston , age 48 years old, has died. again we're trying to find out the cause of death . you may be aware she's had a very, very long bat well drugs and alcohol, that was very public. we're looking right now at footage of her actually going to court. she faced many different charges throughout her career, stood by her husband, bobby brown , who also had a very, very public bat well drugs and alcohol, that's actually her ex-husband there, looking at video of them when they were in israel. during their marriage they were a very public marriage, even had a reality show at one point chronicling their ups and downs . she reemerged with a new album a couple years ago, divorced bobby brown and making a comeback but many critics said her voice seemed different, may have been because of years of drug use , not clear. very, very sad news. she was beautiful, beautiful singer, on the phone right now we have courtney hazelett, entertainment reporter on the phone. courtney , are you getting confirmation of her death?

>> you know the ap has confirmation via one of her publicists. she has a large management team . we haven't heard from everybody absolutely yet. i'm just learning about this at the same time as we all are. this comes as a huge shock obviously. whitney has had her ups and downs like you mentioned a few moments ago. nobody saw this coming. her management team was in talks for her to do more performances this year so it wasn't like she was crawling away from the spotlight in any way. the early stages of her comeback was still, were still in the works. she was supposed to do live performances later on in this calendar year and definitely this is not something that anybody anticipated.

>> and as recent as a few days ago it was floated she might be one of the judges on " american idol ," that was a possibility for her?

>> all of the big splashy rolls were bandied about as comeback rolls for whitney houston . she's beloved by her fans, one of those instances where you really cringed every time you heard a bad story about her. this is the ugly side of celebrity here. you hear some stories about celebrities falling by the wayside and people say yeah they had that coming. with whitney houston she had such an amazing voice and presence and people really cherished what she was offering up to the world for so long. nobody liked seeing her stumble as she did in recent years.

>> right.

>> so people really wanted her to come back and seeing her as a judge on one of these shows would have been inspirational to a lot of people especially young artists who look up to her.

>> courtney , what can you tell us about her drug use and alcohol use? her drug use was very public with her marriage to bobby brown . two people seemingly using some sort of substance and then she apparently was cleaned up, she came out with that new album a couple years ago and then what did you hear about her use in the recent last year, two years?

>> you know, in recent years any time she would have any sort of difficulty, people would first say okay, she's doing drugs again or she's abuses alcohol again, something along those lines and a lot of times representation would say it's exhaustion or something along those lines, the exhaustion line that we hear so often with celebrities whether it's true or not or a coverup or what might be going on. this woman had not battled all of her demons and we've heard from addiction experts every time there's a sad story along the lines, let's be clear, we don't know what the cause of death is at this point.

>> no, we don't.

>> any time you hear about the stories addiction is something these people deal with lifelong and with whitney houston her addictions were not something that were 100% behind her. according to anybody who knew her well.

>> and according to people who knew her well she grew up in this family of gospel singers out of newark, new jersey, and really had a very sheltered upbringing, very strict, sheltered upbringing and wasn't until she became quite famous and dating famous people and of course marrying bobby brown that it was even obvious she had any drug issues. is that true?

>> you know this isn't something that's unique to whitney houston of course. hollywood, show business , if you will in general doesn't have to be the corner of hollywood per se but whatever aspect of show business you're ensconced in, this sort of lifestyle is something that tends to rear its head quite often sadly enough. whitney certainly wasn't immune.

>> no, she was not. we should mention also they have a daughter, bobby christina. do you know how old she is?

>> off the top of my head i don't, i believe she's a teenager or nearing her 20s. they do share a young daughter and she, too, has had to deal with the spotlight. we love to watch reality shows and that's why we talk about " jersey shore " all the time, the fun train wreck that it is and there's the flip-side and you can point to the reality focus put on bobby brown and whitney houston , i'm not sure what good that did for these people.

>> definitely. as you pointed out she was someone who everybody was rooting for when she was making her comeback. she had a unique voice, more outstanding than a lot of her peers breaking through in the '80s and '90.

>> beyond unique. we were inundated with the singing competition shows, some of them are better than others, at this exact moment "the voice" is airing on nbc and " american idol " and all these competition shows so now more than ever when you start to see all these people who we think might be talented and how they really stack up, it is hard, hard, hard to find people with the type of just pure voice that whitney houston has, raw talent, like you said. this isn't a kid who was a showbiz kid. this wasn't someone groomed for this from the time they could walk or the time they could make any sort of sound with their choice up until adulthood. this was the real deal . that was whitney houston , a person given a gift and she could sing, had the pipes and it was something she was born with and that we can say that was so unique.

>> and as obvious to everyone, she was extraordinarily beautiful and was working as a model when she started her singing career. what have you heard about her relationship with bobby brown in the recent years while they've been divorced. was this an amicable divorce? what was their relationship?

>> for as much as their marriage was chronicled through that reality show , i have to be honest, they kind of fell off the radar with me once they were divorced because just they weren't being followed as carefully or we had new people to follow in the reality realm but they had a tumultuous relationship and that's something that extended just beyond the time they were married but like we hear so often, they share a child and when that's the case, you do the best that you can do, but when you're dealing with two really -- st.

>> strong personalities.

>> and people struggling with addiction issues it wasn't the best situation for sure.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/46356826/ns/today-entertainment/

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