Oprah Winfrey disclosed a troubling behind-the-scenes moment involving Whitney Houston’s final appearance on her talk show.
Speaking at Cannes Lions, Winfrey recalled her 2009 interview with the singer, who died in 2012 at the age of 48 of accidental drowning. The former talk show host said Houston’s final appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show included a disturbing moment when the singer fell off the stage.
Recalling the interview process, Winfrey said: “We did the whole, ‘Hey girl, how you doing?’ greeting thing and then I stopped the cameras, and I went behind stage, and I said, ‘So tell me, what do you want to happen here? And I’m gonna tell you what I want to happen here,’” adding, “And that was one of the most powerful interviews.”
She said Houston later returned to perform but had relapsed by that point. “I had such trust from ‘The Oprah Show’ audience … I think it was her ast show with us, and she had gone back on drugs,” Winfrey said.
“The first interview I did with her when we’d gone behind stage and I asked her about her intention, she was clean, but the day she came to my show then to perform in front of the audience, she was not, and she fell off of the stage,” Winfrey revealed.
She added that the moment was never publicly shown at the time, explaining, “I knew that if that story got out … she would be destroyed by that.”
“And 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 that,” Winfrey said.
In that interview, Houston outlined her struggles with addiction, especially during and after her marriage to Bobby Brown. Houston revealed her drug use escalated over time, beginning as occasional use and becoming a deeper addiction, saying she used them to cope and “hide the pain.”
Despite periods of sobriety for Houston, her substance use remained a persistent challenge until her death in 2012, which was ruled an accidental drowning with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors.
