Emma Cowing: Fame is just one drug for flawed celebrity

Published on Thursday 16 February 2012 03:52

A TURKEY sandwich and a side order of jalapenos. That the image of Whitney Houston’s uneaten last meal – found next to the bath where she died – had been photographed, released and broadcast worldwide within hours of her death, says much about the tragic last years of one of modern music’s superstars.

It tells us of the unbearable level of intrusion into her privacy, of a morbid fascination with a fallen icon, and of the insatiable appetite of a public who will follow every last detail when it comes to the inner lives of our biggest celebrities.

Houston’s death on Saturday, at the relatively young age of 48, was undeniably a shock – one of those celebrity passings that seems so surprising yet paradoxically, has a cruel inevitability about it. Houston’s descent from fame to notoriety has been slow, painful and public. From the turbulent marriage to Bobby Brown, to her addictions to crack cocaine and prescription pills, not to mention the meltdowns and diva dramas that continued along the way, Houston had become, in her later years, the sort of celebrity you can only watch through half-closed eyes, so disturbing and pitiful had her existence become.

In 2005 her sister-in-law – in a desperate attempt to make Houston get help for her addictions – leaked pictures of the singer’s filthy Atlanta home which showed drugs parapharnalia clogging up the bathroom sink – a sink used by Houston’s then 11-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina, whose father is the rapper Bobby Brown. Houston went to rehab – as she had several times before – but soon relapsed. It’s a pattern that she had, by the time of her death, repeated often.

Why, wondered so many, could someone who seemingly had so much, not only in terms of material wealth (a £100 million fortune which was reportedly frittered away on drugs), as well as a loving young daughter and a talent which is frequently referred to as being “once-in-a-generation”, be so willing to throw it all away?

One of those asking that question, and, indeed, raising it again in the aftermath of Houston’s death, was songstress Celine Dion, a woman whose schmalzy music and bland sentiment tends to bring me out in hives but who nevertheless made a good point exceptionally well.

“It’s just really unfortunate that drugs, bad people, bad influences, took over her dreams, her motherhood,” Dion told a Canadian TV station.

“What happens when you have everything? Love, support, motherhood… something happens that I don’t understand. That’s why I’m scared of show business, of drugs and hanging out. That’s why I don’t go to parties.”

While most of us would draw the line at never going to a party (although at least if we did we would be safe in the knowledge that we would never bump into Celine Dion), she does, however, reveal a truth about the showbiz industry.

It is, and always has been, a dangerous and ruthless world where young and naive men and women can easily be led astray.

No one denies that withdrawal from drug and alcohol addictions are inordinately difficult. The deaths of other singers in recent times such as Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse are more than testament to that. But it can be done. Not all drug casualties in showbusiness fail to come back. Look at Russell Brand, a serious heroin addict in his early years and now a successful (if about-to-be-divorced) and clean bona fide Hollywood star. Then there is Tom Hardy, star of Inception and Bronson and soon to be seen as Bane in the final installment of the Batman films – who battled a crack cocaine addiction to emerge, via alcoholism and rehab, into one of Hollywood’s hottest young actors. Recovery is possible. It just isn’t easy.

If nothing else, Houston’s story should serve as a stark reminder to those starting out in this ruthless business – who think it’s all being signed by Simon Cowell and going to parties with Cheryl Cole in blacked-out people carriers – that the greatest talents can be subsumed by bad choices and even worse addictions.

For Houston, whose voice should have brought her not just fame and success, but also happiness, there will be no more chances. For her, it seemed that everything was never enough.