According to US, a source close to Houston reported that the intervention group found Houston in a daze following a show in Los Angeles. At 3:30 the previous morning, Brown created a ruckus at the entrance to the Beverly Hills Hotel. "It was clear Bobby was high," a witness said. While Brown was whisked away to the hospital, Houston's entourage tried to get her to seek treatment. "You have to have standards. If you don't, people won't respect you," Cissy Houston was reported as saying.
The event fell in the middle of Houston's first world tour in several years, which had been marred by a number of cancelled shows. Following the intervention, Houston cancelled her next gig in San Francisco fifteen minutes before show time, citing illness. Three high-profile incidents followed in 2000 including a marijuana charge on January 11, when several grams of pot were found in one of Houston's bag as she and Brown left Hawaii for San Francisco. Two months later she dropped out of performing at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony (ten minutes before the show's start), at which her mentor Clive Davis was honored. Later that month, Houston's performance at the Academy Awards was nixed, though some uncertainty remains as to whether Houston cancelled or was fired by music supervisor Burt Bacharach. In May, Houston's longtime personal damage-control center, Robyn Crawford, resigned, leaving her without a P.R. backup.
Houston is currently on the promotional circuit in support of Greatest Hits, but all is not well. Brown remains in a Fort Lauderdale jail following a May 10 arrest for violating his probation. And Friday's story paints a harrowing portrait of Houston's room at the Beverly Hills Hotel that night. "It was a wreck. Broken beer bottles were everywhere," claimed a source. But despite the intervention efforts, "there was nothing her mother could say that night to make her pay attention."
Calls to Houston's company, Nippy, Inc., were unanswered at press time.
ANDREW DANSBY
(June 8, 2000)