All About Laughs
Former Daytime talk show host Rosie O’Donnell attempted to shed some new light on late singer Whitney Houston and her “gay life”. The gay pioneer took to Jess Rothschild’s podcast “Hot Takes and Deep Dives”, where she talked about observations she made of Houston and her friend and alleged gay lover Robyn Crawford during their interactions in the late 90’s.
Rumors of Whitney Houston’s sexuality existed throughout her lifetime. However, pressure from her church background and her position in the black community added a different type of pressure on the star to stay in the closet, at least thats how Rosie felt.
“Whitney was troubled by, I think, the gay part of her life and didn’t want it exposed. It’s hard in black culture to accept gayness. It’s culturally more difficult, I think.” Rosie continued “The Baptist church… weighed heavily on her, growing up in the church in gospel and singing, I think that there was a lot of conflict about that.”
The topic initially came up when Rothchild asked Rosie about a time where Whitney was a no-show to a scheduled appearance on her talk show The Rosie O’Donnell Show. The interview was supposed to be in support of her 1997 adaptation of Disney’s Cinderella starring herself, Brandy Norwood, Whoppi Goldberg and Bernadette Peters.
Rosie said that the no-show was due to Whitney being in a “downward spirial” with drugs and dealing with her sexuality.
O'Donnell said on the “Hot Takes & Deep Dives” podcast that she met the late singer and Robyn Crawford at a party, where it was clear the two were a couple. https://t.co/A3WDKgnQfM
— HuffPost Queer Voices (@huffpostqueer) March 24, 2021
“It was obvious to anyone watching her. There was a horrible, horrible performance on the AMA’s or something. Do you remember that? She was so skinny, she looked so much like an addict,” Rosie said. “And Robyn, who was her partner for a while, she had written me and told me that was a very big day for them, the crew around her, to think that they had to make inroads to try to help her, and sadly, they didn’t. Couldn’t.”
Robyn Crawford was a constant in Whitney’s life at the time. The former assistant and childhood friend admitted recently that she in Whitney were indeed involved in a gay relationship, one they were forced to keep private.
Robyn stopped by Wendy Williams in 2019 promoting her tell-all book “A Song For You: My Life With Whitney Houston.” While there she confronted Williams over things she said about Whitney in her radio hay day.
“I heard that interview, I got a call from my former assistant. I wasn’t working with Whitney. And she said Whitney’s going to be on ‘Wendy Williams.’ I said, ‘What do you mean she’s going to be on Wendy?’ That was the cumulative, fed up Whitney Houston that I heard.”
Williams asked if Houston was “fed up with me or fed up with the world?”
Crawford reminded her, “You had been talking about Whitney and myself for so long.”
Despite her private relationship with Robyn, Houston’s most famously linked to former Husband Bobby Brown and R&B singer Ray J prior to her death. The singer never came out as gay and never addressed the rumors during her lifetime.
