Whitney Houston\u2019s estate has refuted what they call \u201cinaccurate and unfair\u201d claims by Oprah Winfrey that the singer was drug affected when she fell off the stage during an appearance on her talkshow.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Tuesday at the Cannes Lions conference in France<\/a>, Winfrey claimed Houston was \u201cback on drugs\u201d during her two-part appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2009, during which she spoke about being clean after years of substance abuse and two spells in rehab.<\/p>\n \u201cShe fell off of the stage,\u201d Winfrey said on Tuesday, saying she later begged the audience not share any photos of the incident to spare the singer.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew that if that story got out \u2026 she would be destroyed by that,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so even though the audience was there and the audience had cameras, I begged them not to put those pictures out because it would ruin her life, and they did not. That would not happen today, I can tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n Houston\u2019s performance on Oprah in 2009.<\/p>\n In a statement on Wednesday night, the Houston estate confirmed the singer \u201cabsolutely fell from the stage\u201d, but denied she was under the influence of drugs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was during a sound check and it was due to the darkness of the area and her unfamiliarity with the stage,\u201d the statement read. \u201cShe was absolutely not high.\u201d<\/p>\n Houston \u201cfaced personal battles,\u201d they added, \u201cbut it is inaccurate and unfair to attach that struggle to every performance or every chapter of her life.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the studio audience witnessed on stage was the result of discipline, talent, and commitment not the assumptions others project,\u201d the statement continued.<\/p>\n \u201cWhitney\u2019s humanity included triumphs and struggles, but on that day, she showed up as the professional and gifted artist she always worked to be. We owe her the dignity of telling the truth not repeating myths.\u201d<\/p>\n Oprah Winfrey\u2019s interview with Whitney Houston at the Town Hall in New York City in 2009. The interview was a two-parter, which featured an in-studio performance from Houston. Photograph: George Burns<\/p>\n Houston was one of the world\u2019s bestselling artists at her peak in the 80s and 90s, selling more than 170m albums. Among her hundreds of awards included two Emmys and six Grammys, with her hits including I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), Saving All My Love For You and perhaps her most famous song, I Will Always Love You, from her movie The Bodyguard.<\/p>\n Houston opened up about her drug use in the 2000s<\/a> and revealed that using cocaine, marijuana and prescription medication had left her unable to hit the high notes she previously could reach.<\/p>\n Houston died aged 48<\/a> in 2012 after accidentally drowning<\/a> in the bath at the Beverly Hilton hotel. The final autopsy report revealed<\/a> the drowning was caused by the \u201ceffects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use\u201d, and that she had marijuana and several prescription medications in her system at the time of her death.<\/p>\n Winfrey has not commented on the estate\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whitney Houston\u2019s estate has refuted what they call \u201cinaccurate and unfair\u201d claims by Oprah Winfrey that the singer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-494352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}