After months of recent speculation about her supposed drug habit--fueled by missed concerts, a Hawaiian pot bust and an erratic performance at a bash for mentor Clive Davis--Houston is now the subject of a report in the upcoming Us Weekly that claims she was the focus of a failed drug intervention by her family last July.
The article in the June 19 issue (on newsstands Friday) is reportedly based on unnamed sources close to Houston and claims her mom, gospel singer Cissy Houston, along with family, friends and two drug specialists confronted the singer in her suite at the Beverly Hill Hotel to try to persuade her to enter a drug treatment center. After hearing their heart-felt pleas, Houston, purportedly looking dazed as she sat on the bed, declined.
"There was nothing her mother could say that night to make her pay attention," one anonymous source recalled. "It was very sad."
Another insider said that the intervention was "disastrous," and that Houston's suite was turned upside down with "broken beer bottles everywhere."
The intervention followed a Los Angeles show that came at the end of troubled tour during which Houston had skipped out on several shows (saying the East Coast's poor air quality caused her "bronchioles to shut down").
The morning of the intervention, according to Us, Whitney and hubby Bobby Brown had a meltdown at the posh Beverly Hills Hotel. Houston was supposedly sitting in the hotel lobby at 3:30 a.m., looking aloof and "in her own world", while Brown was "ranting and raving" in the hotel lobby.
"It was clear Bobby was high," a source told Us Weekly. Hotel security guards were called in to quiet down the onetime New Jack King of Swing. Brown was reportedly taken to a nearby hospital, treated and released, and the entire incident was kept mum--until now.
Of course, this isn't the first time Whitney was said to have stared down--and ultimately ignored--an intervention from family members. When the latest round of drug rumors about Whitney surfaced this spring, cousin Dionne Warwick specifically denied reports of a drug intervention. And Houston herself has steadfastly denied any problem with substance abuse. (Representatives at her label, Arista, refused to comment on the Us article.)
Meanwhile, Brown, whose drug and booze troubles have been tabloid fodder for years, remains jailed in Florida, awaiting a hearing on whether he violated terms of his probation. Authorities say he failed a drug test while on probation.