It’s not right, but was it OK?
It’s impossible to always be honest when you’re face to face with a legend. So, here’s what happened when I told a big fat porky to Whitney Houston.
Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!
Sorry I’ve been quiet. I’ve had a lot of work on with the day job and had to knuckle down and focus. That’s the hardest thing about Substacking when you have a day job – you must fit in the writing when you can. And if I’m time strapped then writing the newsletter hits the back burner.
Firstly, just a quickie. I’ve left Twitter (I’m not calling it the one letter thing). It wasn’t serving me in any way, shape or form so I deactivated the account. I hated the fact the timelines were genuinely filling me with dread.
All it was doing was pissing me off. So, there we have it - no more tweeting.
The one thing I do hope doesn’t happen to Substack is that the energy Twitter has been giving off for the past couple of years doesn’t migrate to Substack. I don’t want doom and gloom, political commentary and opinionated twats. I love the creativity of it all over here.
Don’t use Substack as a place to put out your negative energy on notes all day.
Like all social community-lead platforms, it could end up succumbing to crappy vibes. But I really hope it doesn’t. I genuinely feel we all need more places that aren’t leaving us feeling depressed about the state of the world and pelted with all the dread.
Anyway, here’s the main event. Back to Mr Showbiz…
P.S. I know a lot of you have subscribed or followed after my appearance on Private Parts with Olivia Bentley. WELCOME! I’ll pop up a link to one of my first Substack newsletter in the notes so you can get a steer on who I am and what I do (or did).
Meeting your idols in actual real life has always been an utterly bizarre experience.
I met Madonna, interviewed Dolly, had a cocktail with Janet, afternoon tea with Pamela Anderson and in general I’d mix with lots of the Royals. Meeting the people who were iconic and globally known was never the easiest experience.
Like most people, with these legendary names I’d almost dehumanized them.
They were always so other worldly in the flesh. You know, you’d spent your entire life watching and reading about these A-Listers so when you’re on an actual sofa with them and having quality time it remained a weird experience. Seeing them with your own eyes is, to be frank, bizarre.
It’s even harder when the person you’re going to meet is in trouble, not at their best and you’re forced to do something you wouldn’t usually do. Lie.
That’s exactly what happened when I was granted an audience with pop superstar Whitney Houston. Now, disclaimer time. I LOVED Whitney. She was such a legendary voice. Potentially one of the most globally celebrated voices ever…
But there was no doubting the fact she had her troubles. That Bobby Brown lead her down a right terrible garden path. Remember the crack is whack years? Yowzers. She played out her issues in the public eye and it was unpleasant to see so much talent squandered to the party lifestyle. Then dying in the bathtub. It was all so tragic.
I’ll set the scene; I was invited to Birmingham to watch Whitney on her final tour of the UK in April 2010. I was with a pack of journalists including all the main players from the tabloid world. We were told upon arrival we would potentially be meeting her after the show and to be prepared. Some of the writers were staying overnight in Birmingham following the event. I, on the other hand, had to get in a car back to London where I’d get four hours sleep before heading to ITV’s Daybreak (the mid noughties iteration of Good Morning Britain) to discuss Whitney’s performance. It was going to be a very long night for me.
Little did I know, it was going to be so terrible too. The show was awful. Her voice wasn’t there. The big notes weren’t reached. She kept heading off stage for breaks (at one point her brother came on to perform and fill time…) and she looked like a hot sweaty mess throughout. It was a sad spectacle and really felt like the demise of a legend. You got a millisecond of the old Whitney and then it went south. It was gutting to see.
Typically, her PR at the time was working her backside off throughout the evening to tell us how brilliant the entire show was. She’d gotten a lot of the journos on side. But I just spent the whole show feeling more and more bummed out that this was the state of an icon like Whitney.
I felt terrible about the fact we were ushered straight from the gig ending into an aircraft-sized hanger where a makeshift dressing room had been prepared for us to be granted an audience with the legend herself.
Now, I understand. It’s Whitney. She’s one of the very best. I also appreciate how lucky I am to have been given the opportunity to meet her. But this felt all sorts of wrong.
I knew from the minute we were told we were going to meet her that I was going to have to lie about the show. Then I began panicking about lying because my face tells the truth whatever I’m forced to endure. It’s hard for me to lie. Recently, a friend posed in a funny looking pink outfit whilst pregnant. I told her it was a good look when it came up in conversation. A mutual friend of ours laughed and said I had balls for telling her to her face. I just can’t lie easily.
But this wasn’t just a lie. This was a lie directly into the face of a music icon. A true diva. A voice of a generation. Whitney farrrrrrrrrking Houston.
We each got summoned over to meet her. “That was amazing,” I lied. “Hope you enjoyed performing as much as we enjoyed watching.” It’s remarkable she didn’t clock me. I could hardly look her in the eye.
Don’t rat me out, Whitney. I can tell you know what I’m thinking. By some sort of miracle, she couldn’t detect my deceit. But I felt bad for saying it was good when it wasn’t.
I was perplexed as to how the PR managed to convince the other waiting journalists that Whitney was in the best shape of her life up there on stage. She deserved a medal for the work she did to get the press on side.
Still, we met for a minute or two, awkward small talk, a nice picture and it was a conveyor belt of people queueing to meet her from the British media.
Following me was a writer from Heat Magazine. They’d done something incredibly Heat too. They’d made a special front cover featuring Whitney and it read: Whitney’s incredible 25 years in showbiz!” Or something to that effect. Said writer presented this mock front cover to the woman herself. She looked at it through her bleary eyes and muttered: “25 years in the music industry and look at me posing with this shit.”
On that note, Whitney flashed one of her trademark killer watt smiles for the camera to see. Hey, at least she had a sense of humour.
The next morning, I went on the telly and spoke about my weird night watching Whitney Houston’s supposed “comeback”. I couldn’t lie there either. But I think I was polite enough – saying it wasn’t all the audience had hoped for. Hell, there were people walking out and at one point there was a lot of booing from the front section as it appeared her brother was filling more than 15 minutes of time during the set. They didn’t want to see her brother playing…
I listened to Sidetracked with Nick Grimshaw and Annie Mac recently and they were discussing going to gigs where you’re invited back to meet the performer. Nick made a good point about how awkward the whole thing is. He’s right. I mean, remember Kevin Costner in Truth or Dare when he goes back to meet Madonna and had the gall to describe her show as neat.
“Neat, anybody who describes my show as neat has to go,” Madonna tutted to camera.
I’ll definitely think twice before I head backstage to meet an idol of mine again…
RIP Whitney Houston. I wonder what she’d be doing now if she was still alive. Maybe she’d have turned a corner, found a good crew and made a proper sort of comeback. One to be proud of. We’ll never know…