Oh Whitney!

This is truly the beauty of blogs, everything is fifth or sixth hand here at Junkette. What follows is a report from Salon (quoted in its entirety to save you from the daily site pass nonsense) quoting from an article in the UK tabloid The Sun:

"Whitney on crack? One refreshing thing about British tabloids is their avoidance of modifiers like "allegedly" and "reportedly" when writing about the seamy side of celebrities' lives. For instance, the Sun's big piece on a photo of Whitney Houston's bathroom, taken by her sister-in-law Tine Brown, that apparently looks like a drug den. "She was one of the biggest female artists of her generation -- with a string of '80s and '90s hit singles like 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody' and more than 100 million albums sold," the paper writes. "Now she is a paranoid wreck hopelessly hooked on crack." Brown goes on to dish heavily on Houston, describing how Houston bites and punches herself while high, how she put a hole in the bathroom wall to see if anyone was watching her, how there's a stream of dealers flowing into the house and how Houston smokes eight balls of crack in a cigar. But at least her motives are pure: "I understand what she's going through. Addiction is a disease," says Brown. "Maybe this interview will save her life." (The Sun)"

Whitney seems like such a sad train wreck, and the stories about her have gone from simply titillating to downright depressing. Anyone remember the pre-wacked-out-marriage-to-Bobby-Brown rumors that she was gay? Seems like everyone (including me) knew someone who knew a woman who'd dated her. Now those were good times.

As for the "helpful" sister-in-law, anyone else think that a nice private intervention followed by a stint in rehab might have had more of a chance of saving Whitney's life than an interview with a British tabloid?