In her new memoir, A Song for You: My Life With Whitney Houston, Robyn Crawford writes of the powerful love she shared with Whitney Houston and the deep friendship that lasted over three decades.
Her description of the summer day Houston married Bobby Brown in 1992 is particularly poignant. In the book, Crawford recounts when the singer first told her about Brown’s proposal. Although the two had not been romantically involved for several years, their bond stayed strong.
As Crawford was laying on the bed in her former room within their New Jersey mansion, Houston entered and lay down next to her.
“Bobby asked me to marry him and I think I’m going to do it,” Crawford recalls her saying. Crawford responded by asking Houston if she loved Brown. She replied yes. Then Houston turned to her and asked, “Do you think he loves me?”
Houston asked Crawford to be her Maid of Honor. “I was very emotional,” she writes of the wedding day. “I looked into her eyes when I took her bouquet — taking one last look.”
Crawford continued to work for Houston for eight more years. But following the marriage, Crawford claims her friend became further isolated and her drug use escalated. The volatile marriage often made tabloid headlines.
“I saw and heard him speak to her in ways that were demeaning, and [he] talked down to her,” says Crawford. She added that she was pushed further and further away until she quit in 2000, fearing she could no longer protect her friend.
While they fell out of touch, Crawford says Houston would call from time to time. Once, it was on the heels of a 911 call Houston made after a fight with Brown when the couple was living in Atlanta. “She asked how I was doing, and I stopped her, saying, ‘I want to hear how you’re doing,'” writes Crawford. “She said she was ok. I understood I could help her only when she decided she needed it.”
She hoped that day would come, but it never did. When Crawford heard of Houston’s death on Feb. 11, 2012, she writes, “I felt my inside shattering.” She had lost her closest friend.
And while the revelation of their love story is the one making headlines, Crawford emphasizes it’s their friendship that endured — and that’s what she wants people to remember.
“I felt the need to stand up for our friendship,” she says. “I have a lot of beautiful, wonderful, exciting adventures and loving, caring memories. Whitney was a beautiful friend.”
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