The Whitney Houston estate has disputed Oprah Winfrey’s account that the late singer was high and fell off the stage during an appearance on her talk show.
According to a statement on the official Houston Instagram page, “During the 2009 interview on the Oprah Winfrey show, Whitney did fall off the stage, but it happened during a sound check. It was due to the darkness of the area and her unfamiliarity with the stage. She was absolutely not high.”
In a discussion at Cannes Lion, Winfrey asserted that Houston was relapsing when she arrived for what would be her final performance on the show. “She fell off of the stage,” Winfrey remarked.
Winfrey requested that audience members with cameras refrain from releasing any photos they might have taken of the incident. “I knew that if that story got out … she would be destroyed by that,” Winfrey stated. “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.”
The Houston estate acknowledged that the Grammy-winning artist “faced personal battles, but it is inaccurate and unfair to attach that struggle to every performance or every chapter of her life.”
The statement further noted, “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.”
Winfrey has not responded to the estate’s statement.
Her conversation occurred after she received the Cannes Lion’s LionHeart Award at the Lumière Theatre.
