FINALLY! SOME CLARITY ON WHITNEY HOUSTON

Whitney Houston's Private Hell and Inevitable Death by Allison Samuels A drug-using family. Heartbreaking dysfunction. Why no one could save Whitney Houston from herself. In her final flight back home, singer Whitney Houston should have been surrounded by those who truly loved and cared for her. A few aboard the private plane that carried her body had been there for Houston through thick and thin. Her manager and sister-in-law, Pat Houston, was with her on this last journey, as was her beloved cousin, singer Dionne Warwick. Also along for the ride that Monday afternoon in February was Raffles van Exel, a self-described entertainment consultant who met Houston years before on her concert tour and somehow wriggled his way into her close-knit inner circle. Van Exel was a partner with Houston’s sister-in-law Pat in a new decorative-candle business, and the singer had been set to film a commercial for the line Feb. 11—the day she died. Van Exel never got his commercial, but he did manage to snap a picture of the singer in her casket and sell it to the National Enquirer for millions of dollars. “Her family couldn’t even protect her in death,” says a close friend. “They had the person on the plane with her body that took her picture in the casket. That tells you a lot about the life she was living.” Such was the tragic and twisted reality of one of the greatest singers of all time. Houston wrestled with demons, drugs, and heartbreaking betrayals that continued to haunt her even after her lifeless, bloated body was found face down in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton on the eve of the Grammys. Autopsy results revealed just how much self-inflicted damage Houston had done in her 48 years. The scalding bath water had burned her face, and there were bruises on her forehead, chest, and upper lip and numerous scars on her body. Years of cocaine use had burned a hole through her septum, she had heart disease, and toxicology tests showed residue of marijuana, Xanax, Benadryl, and other medications in her system. “In many ways I’m surprised she lasted as long as she did,” says a former assistant to the singer who didn’t want to be identified due to a confidentiality contract she’d signed. “She was on a downhill road for a long time, and her body just gave out. I know she was tired, very tired, from it all.” THEDAILYBEAST