Oprah Winfrey said she successfully “begged” her talk show audience not to share photos of Whitney Houston when the late singer “fell off of the stage,” amid a drug relapse.
The Emmy-winning “Queen of All Media,” 72, recalled the incident Tuesday while at Cannes Lions, Variety reports.
“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,’” recalled Winfrey, then host of her eponymous talk show. “And that was one of the most powerful interviews.”
Though the Grammy winner “was clean” that day, the same could not be said for what Winfrey believed was Houston’s last appearance on “The Oprah Show” — which would have been filmed in 2009.
“She had gone back on drugs. … And she fell off of the stage,” said Winfrey, who then “begged” the crowd to keep the moment mum, despite having their own photos of it.
“I knew that if that story got out … she would be destroyed by that,” said Winfrey. “They did not [publish the photos]. That would not happen today, I can tell you that.”
The New Jersey-born and bred R&B superstar died in Feb. 2012 due to an accidental drowning caused by the “effects” of heart disease and cocaine use. She was 48.
Her daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, died in Jan. 2015 in a similar manner, with the 22-year-old’s own tragic passing attributed to a combination of drowning and drug intoxication.