NEWSWhitney Houston Felt 'Caged' By Her Fame, Friend Reveals: 'She Wanted to Do Everything Regular People Do'
Whitney Houston died at age 48 on February 11, 2012.
Whitney Houston just wanted to be like everyone else.
In a new interview with the “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” singer’s pal Bebe Winans, got sentimental about his friendship with the late Grammy winner.
Whitney Houston 'wanted to walk in malls' like a normal person, according to Bebe Winans.
“She was someone who had such a big heart and loved people and wanted to help people, but sometimes felt caged because of her success and her fame,” the gospel performer, 62, said while at the It’s A Wonderful Lifetime Yuletide Event at E.P. & L.P. Rooftop in West Hollywood, Calif.
Winans described Houston as “a sister, and beyond a sister” in his life before her passing on February 11, 2012.
He explained that Houston just “wanted to walk in malls” and “do everything that regular working people do.”
Winans even recalled how Houston “sometimes ran away … and her hideaway was our house in Nashville, Tennessee. We’d get a phone call just saying, ‘Is she there? Don’t tell her we called,’ and I’d say, ‘Yes, she’s here. She’s on my couch asleep.’”
Bebe Winans said he misses his pal Whitney Houston terribly.
“That was the kind of person people didn’t get a chance to see. That was the Whitney that we knew and miss terribly,” he emotionally shared.
Houston died at age 48 after she was found unconscious in her Beverly Hilton hotel suite. The coroner reported the “Greatest Love of All” vocalist accidentally drowned and cited heart disease and cocaine use as contributing factors.
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Whitney Houston had 'such a big heart and loved people and wanted to help people,' according to Bebe Winans.
In addition to discussing Houston’s need for normalcy in her life, Winans — who authored the book The Whitney I Knew in 2012 — also noted how his confidante assisted him in buying property back in the day.
“She came [to the showing] knowing she had something in her purse that was going to allow me to buy the house, because the banks had rejected my down payment because they felt like I was a risk. And she found out about it,” he explained.
Bebe Winans described Whitney Houston as 'a sister, and beyond a sister' in a recent interview.
“On the back porch, she said, ‘This looks like my brother’s house,’ and I was like, ‘You said that about every room we went in,’ and then she reached in her pocket and she put out an envelope, and she gave it to me and in it was $50,000 to pay for what the bank had put on me,” Winans remembered.
He added: “When I paid her back, she called and said, ‘You paid me back?’ and I said, ‘I told you I was.’ She said, ‘A lot of people say that!’ That was Whitney.”
People interview Winans.
