Whitney Houston’s best friend Robyn Crawford has confirmed long-standing rumors that Houston was a member of the LGBTQ family. Crawford reveals in her new memoir A Song For You that she and Houston were in a loving romantic relationship in the early ’80s.
Crawford and Houston met in the summer of 1980, when they were both counselors at a summer camp in New Jersey. They quickly gravitated toward each other.
“We wanted to be together and it was just us,” Crawford told People. “The physical part of our friendship happened along the way and it was just as beautiful.”
That summer, they shared their first kiss. It “was long and slow, like honey,” Crawford said. “As we eased out of it, my nerves shot up and my heart beat furiously. Something was happening between us.”
They also slept together for the first time that evening. Crawford writes in the book that it “felt like a dream.”
The two continued to be intimate for two more years. But when Houston signed a record deal in 1982, she cut it off.
“She said we shouldn’t be physical anymore because it would make our journey even more difficult,” Crawford wrote. “She said if people find out about us, they would use this against us, and back in the ’80s that’s how it felt.”
Moreover, Houston’s family wasn’t OK with the situation. Mom Cissy Houston told them “it wasn’t natural for two women to be that close.”
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“But we were that close,” Crawford wrote.
Though their relationship changed, they remained tight-knit for two decades, fueling endless rumors about Houston’s sexuality. In 2016, Houston’s ex-husband Bobby Brown claimed to Us Weekly that the late songstress was bisexual.
For her part, Crawford explains that “We never talked about labels, like lesbian or gay. We just lived our lives and I hoped it could go on that way forever.”
Crawford now lives with her partner Lisa Hintlemann. She opted to tell the truth about her relationship with Houston for the first time to set the record straight about who the legendary singer really was.
Truly, this tale is heartbreaking — but we’re so glad that it’s finally being told. Imagine if Houston had been able to openly be in love with a woman? According to Bobby Brown: “If Robyn was accepted into Whitney’s life [by others], Whitney would still be alive today.”
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