THE MUSIC industry mourned the pop star Whitney Houston at the annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles last night, following her death at the age of 48 on Saturday.
Police received a 911 emergency call from the Beverly Hilton Hotel at 3.43pm on Saturday, according to Lieut Mark Rosen of the Los Angeles police department. Firefighters were already there in preparation for a pre-Grammy gala which Houston was to have attended. They attempted to resuscitate the singer, but she was pronounced dead at 3.55pm.
Bobbi Kristina Brown, Houston’s only child with her ex-husband, soul singer Bobby Brown, was taken to Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles yesterday morning. The 18-year-old had also been staying at the Beverly Hilton.
Lieut Rosen said there were “no obvious signs of criminal intent” but an autopsy was due to take place. “The reality is she was far too young to die and any time you have the death of someone this age, it is the subject of an investigation.” Police said there would be no updates before today.
Houston was found unconscious by her bodyguard, CNN reported. The Bodyguardwas the title of Houston's 1992 film, in which she played a pop diva protected by a former secret service agent, played by Kevin Costner. Its soundtrack won three Grammy awards.
Entertainment website TMZ reported that Houston was found in the bath of her fourth floor suite and that pill bottles were found in her room.
Lieut Rosen said Houston had arrived at the hotel with an entourage of family and friends, some of whom were in the suite at the time of her death.
Fans left roses and lighted candles outside the hotel entrances on Saturday night, as guests arrived in evening attire for the pre-Grammy gala hosted by Clive Davis, the founder of Arista records who “discovered” Houston singing back-up for her mother, gospel singer Cissy Houston.
“To hear this young girl breathe such fire into this song . . . I mean it really sent the proverbial tingles up my spine,” Davis recalled. The Grammy awards were Houston’s “favourite night of the year,” he said.
Jennifer Hudson was to sing one of Houston's songs as a memorial at the Grammys last night. Topsy.com, which measures social media traffic, reported more than 2.4 million tweets about Houston in the hour after her death was reported; more than 1,500 tweets per second. Whitney – The Greatest Hitswas number one on the iTunes album chart yesterday.
From the mid-1980s through the 1990s, Houston was one of America’s greatest pop stars, selling some 170 million records. Her three-octave voice declined in the 2000s, when she struggled with drug addiction and an unhappy marriage.
In 2009, she told Oprah Winfrey she had been a “heavy” user of marijuana and cocaine.