Online Reporter
LOS ANGELES. — Brandy details a lifelong fandom for Whitney Houston, sharing the time she once schemed her way backstage at one of her concerts.
Although she didn’t get to meet her that night she revealed she managed to get the singer on the phone when she was 12 years old.
At a taping of “The Tonight Show” in Burbank, California, where BeBe & CeCe Winans were set to perform, the young singer hatched a plan to sing their track with Houston, “Hold Up the Light,” to get backstage.
Apparently, nobody stopped her as she made her way out of the live TV audience.
“Their attention carried me from the rafters all the way down to the soundstage floor, past security guards who couldn’t quite bring themselves to stop this little brown girl with the big voice, all the way backstage to where BeBe and CeCe stood in conversation,” she writes.
The sister-and-brother duo were also amused, and when a young Brandy begged them to call Houston, they obliged.
“Disbelief rattled through my limbs as CeCe, calm as still water, extended the receiver toward me with a playful smile,” Brandy writes.
“A soft pause, a gentle rustle on the other end, and then . . . a laugh. A low, sweet laugh that sent electricity racing through my veins. ‘Speak up, baby, I can hardly hear you,’ the voice coaxed, breathy and warm, unmistakably hers — Whitney Houston.”
By 2012, the “Cinderella” costars had become close.
Brandy recalled preparing to perform at Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy gala with Monica, when a disheveled Houston made her entrance.
“Whitney came bouncing — no, exploding — onto that stage like a chaotic meteor, trailing laughter, water, and the unmistakable scent of trouble.
‘‘Her clothes clung to her damply, evidence of an impulsive swim, and she moved with the unpredictable rhythm of someone no longer tethered to the room,” Brandy writes, alarmed that onlooking press seemed to revel in the unexpected story.
“Whitney appeared to be under the influence, and it was tough to be in a room crawling with strangers whispering and judging her.”
The pair would speak on the phone later that night, hours before Houston’s death from drowning in a bathtub and the “effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use.” She was 48.
“For three precious hours, we talked. We reminisced. We laughed together. Cried together. Prayed together,” Brandy writes.
“There were flashes of the old Whitney in that conversation — glimpses of light breaking through.
‘‘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.’” — USA Today
Mathew Masinge