The sexuality of American cultural icon Whitney Houston has been the topic of debate and discussion. During her early career, speculation on Houston's close relationship with personal assistant Robyn Crawford led many tabloid media reporters to bring up rumors that Houston was a "closeted lesbian". Houston was often broached on the subject and constantly denied that she and Crawford were ever sexually intimate and denied she was gay. Houston married singer Bobby Brown in 1992 and while she would have her only child, daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, with her husband, many in the tabloid and mainstream press believed Houston only married Brown to quiet any speculation on her sexuality, a claim Bobby Brown himself later believed. Prior to Brown, Houston had few relationships with men, including a secretive affair with Jermaine Jackson, which inspired the recording and music video to Houston's hit, "Saving All My Love for You", as well as with Eddie Murphy, who was reportedly "elusive", and an alleged brief fling with fellow pop singer Michael Jackson.
Following the singer's death in 2012, some members of Houston's family and several former employees began to speak on the relationship of Houston and Crawford and concluded that Houston was either bisexual or sexually fluid. Houston's ex-husband Bobby Brown also claimed he knew Houston was bisexual and felt if Crawford hadn't been pushed out of her life and that Houston's family had accepted her bisexuality that the singer would still be alive. In addition, rumors reported a love triangle between Houston and actresses Jodie Foster and Kelly McGillis, with the latter denying ever meeting Houston. According to her sister-in-law, Houston reportedly engaged in same-sex affairs with women during the latter years of her marriage to Brown. In 2019, seven years after Houston's death, Robyn Crawford admitted to a same-sex relationship with the singer in the early years of their friendship during the early 1980s with Houston putting a stop to it, fearing negative effects of her future career in music.
Relationship with Robyn Crawford
Houston met Robyn Crawford at the East Orange Community Development Center where the two found work as summer camp counselors for children, not far from Houston's childhood Dodd Street residence in East Orange, New Jersey, in August 1980, days prior to Houston's 17th birthday. According to Crawford, following their introduction to one another, she told Houston, "I'm gonna look out for you". Not too long afterwards, Houston told her "stick with me and I'll take you around the world."
At the time of their meeting, Houston was the leading singer of the youth choir at New Hope Baptist Church, a professional session vocalist, fashion model and a junior at her school, Mount Saint Dominic Academy, while Crawford was a collegiate basketball player who was then attending Monmouth University on a basketball scholarship.
Houston later recounted their first meeting, stating: "I was 16 and we were working at summer jobs and I remember thinking, 'Wow, this is really going to be a trip this summer — I don't have any friends'. And then here comes Robyn with this beautiful, beautiful Afro. She was tall and very statuesque and I was like, 'Wow, man.' She stood up for me. I remember thinking, I've known this person seems like all my life." Houston had been the target of female bullies going back to grade school and stated Crawford stood up to her bullies. The singer later stated Crawford was "the sister I never had". As they got acquainted, according to Crawford, the young women's relationship grabbed the attention of residents of their East Orange neighborhood and the pair would occasionally encounter homophobic reactions.
Weeks later, Houston and Crawford, then 19 years old, shared their first kiss together at Houston's home, with the singer stopping, telling Crawford, "if I knew when my brothers were coming home, I'd show you something."
Following a performance at New Hope Baptist Church one Sunday, Houston and Crawford spent time at an apartment owned by Houston's cousin where, after eating fast food and reading the Bible while smoking marijuana together, they made love, starting what would be a two-year romance. During this era, Houston and Crawford began venturing gay clubs together at Asbury Park and did little to hide their affair. At one point, after leaving a gay club, they removed their clothes and made love in Houston's cousin Dee Dee's Cadillac and were told by a cop to move out of the section after they were spotted.
Though Houston's mother, Cissy Houston later claimed she wasn't sure if her daughter was romantically involved with Crawford, she didn't approve of their close relationship. At one point, according to Crawford, Cissy recited a Biblical verse to her daughter and told her it "wasn't natural for two women to be that close"; Houston ignored her mother's advice.
In February 1982, Houston came to the apartment Crawford shared with her mother and gave her a gift which included a "slate-blue Bible" inside, telling Crawford that they have to stop their romantic affair.
Said Crawford: "she said we shouldn't be physical anymore because it would make our journey more difficult. She said if people find out about us, they would use this against us. And back in the '80s, that's how it felt." Crawford and Houston each wrote "a page about our love, pledged that we would always be loyal, and left our past there." Shortly afterwards, the pair moved together to a two-bedroom apartment at Woodbridge Township, New Jersey and continued their platonic relationship.
Later that fall, less than a few months before Houston signed with Arista Records, Crawford dropped out of Monmouth University to follow and aid Houston's career, much to the chagrin of Crawford's mother Janet.
Crawford became Houston's personal assistant shortly after Houston released her debut album. Eventually, Crawford moved up to being Houston's executive assistant after she formed her production company Nippy Inc., and, finally, creative director.
Crawford was featured in the background singing in the music video to Houston's first hit single, "You Give Good Love".
Despite Houston and Crawford reportedly ending the sexual part of their friendship in 1982, speculation on their relationship would eventually hit the media, after Houston's self-titled debut album became a hit in 1985. That year, Houston wanted to fly Crawford to join her at a black radio convention in Philadelphia, which caught the attention of radio disk jockeys and tabloid newspapers alike.
Houston and Crawford often shared the same hotel room and when Houston moved to bigger residences, Crawford accompanied her. As Houston's fame grew, her father John Houston advised the pair to stay apart from each other during public appearances and date men to avoid suspicion.
Author Gerrick Kennedy later wrote in 2022, "The public concluded [in the 1980s] that Whitney was a closet lesbian and she and Robyn were star-crossed lovers doomed by the oppression of society and Whitney’s religious family."
During a 1987 interview with Time magazine, both Houston and Crawford denied reports of being engaged in a relationship. Crawford told the publication, "I tell my family, 'You can hear anything on the streets, but if you don't hear it from me, it's not true'." Houston added: "My mother taught me that when you stand in the truth and someone tells a lie about you, don't fight it. I'm not with any man. I'm not in love. People see Robyn with me, and they draw their own conclusions. Anyway, whose business is it if you're gay or like dogs? What others do shouldn't matter. Let people talk. It doesn't bother me because I know I'm not gay. I don't care."
Houston would constantly be broached on the subject of Crawford and her sexuality for the first fifteen years of her career in the spotlight.
In 1990, Houston and Crawford were interviewed by journalist Roger Friedman for a cover story in the magazine, Fame, around the time of the release of I'm Your Baby Tonight. Because Friedman hadn't asked them about their relationship, the two women freely addressed their future plans for Houston's career. But when the issue came out that October under the title Secret Life of Whitney Houston by the magazine's top editor, both women were furious.
After the anger subsided, Houston told Crawford, "this is what my mother meant when she said 'they build you up to tear you down'. You know what? They'll never, ever get anything from me again." The incident impacted how Houston felt about doing interviews.
During her interview with Katie Couric in 1996, Houston said, "This wasn't her world. I brought [Crawford] into this madness. She goes, 'why am I the target, what did I do?' I said 'you're my friend, what else do you want? You play basketball, they think you're a man, I don't know!' She's a damn good basketball player, she can beat any man there is, I love it."
In 1992, Houston made Crawford the maid of honor at her wedding to Bobby Brown. Crawford would claim Houston became isolated following her marriage to Brown, leading to a gradual estrangement in Houston and Crawford's friendship. Crawford, who had been living in Houston's Mendham residence prior to the marriage, relocated to a house five blocks away, paid for by the singer. Crawford left Houston's employ in May 2000. Crawford and Houston last physically saw each other following the taping of VH1 Divas Duets in May 2003.
Following Houston's death in 2012, Crawford released a letter expressing her grief over the loss of Houston and attended her memorial service. In 2019, after nearly 40 years, Crawford released her memoirs, A Song for You: My Life with Whitney Houston, where she finally admitted that she and Houston had an intimate affair; the book later became a New York Times best-seller.
Prior to Crawford's revelation of the romantic part of their relationship, two Houston documentary films, 2017's Whitney: Can I Be Me and 2018's Whitney, brought up the subject with the latter film's director Kevin Macdonald explaining "I think it's fairly obvious when you talk to the family and friends, nobody is denying that Whitney and Robyn had a physical relationship — a sexual relationship. They were partners for a number of years. My understanding is that relationship was over in a romantic sense by the mid-'80s when Whitney became a big star."
Their early romance was dramatized in the 2022 Houston biopic, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody, with Naomi Ackie as Houston and Nafessa Williams as Crawford.
Relationships with men
Following the ending of her sexual relationship with Crawford, Houston began a torrid, secretive one-year affair with American singer Jermaine Jackson, who was nine years Houston's senior.
Though initially reluctant to share details of her relationship with Jackson to Crawford, Houston eventually told her of their affair, with Crawford warning her that Jackson was still married to his first wife, Hazel Gordy, daughter of Motown founder Berry Gordy. According to Crawford, Jackson was "smuggled into hotel rooms" with Houston, worked late nights on duets with her and the 20-year-old Houston even had a nickname for Jackson, "Ji".
The affair reportedly alarmed Jackson's brother Michael, who warned him that the affair could destroy both his and Houston's careers. Houston and Jackson appeared on TV together performing on the soap opera, As the World Turns. According to Robyn Crawford, the affair broke when Houston was angered that Jackson had reneged on a promise to give Houston and Crawford tickets to see the Jacksons's Victory Tour at Madison Square Garden around July 1984, which led to Houston going off on vacation in Antigua by herself and refusing to give Jackson her phone number. Others reported that Houston angrily broke off the affair because Jackson wouldn't leave his wife Hazel.