Oprah Winfrey recently made headlines by telling an unflattering story about Whitney Houston, and now the late singer’s estate is hitting back, saying Oprah’s version of the story is inaccurate.
While speaking at the Cannes Lion festival in France, Variety and other outlets reported that Oprah illustrated the influence she and her talk show had by claiming that Whitney Houston once fell off the stage during a 2009 appearance on the show because “she had gone back on drugs.”
Variety quoted Oprah as saying, “I knew that if that story got out … [Whitney] would be destroyed by that. And so even though the audience was there and the audience had cameras, I begged them not to put those pictures out because it would ruin her life, and they did not. That would not happen today, I can tell you that.”
The official Whitney Houston Instagram account posted a statement from the late singer’s estate on Wednesday, reading, “Whitney absolutely fell off stage, but it was during a sound check and it was due to the darkness of the area and her unfamiliarity with the stage. She was absolutely not high.”
“This story was picked up by several media outlets. Like many people, she faced personal battles, but it is inaccurate and unfair to attach that struggle to every performance or every chapter of her life,” the statement continued.
The statement concluded, “What the studio audience witnessed on stage was the result of discipline, talent, and commitment not the assumptions others project. Whitney’s humanity included triumphs and struggles, but on that day, she showed up as the professional and gifted artist she always worked to be. We owe her the dignity of telling the truth not repeating myths.”
Whitney accidentally drowned in 2012. She was 48.
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