Viewed from the outside, the confusing thing about all this is that, for much of the time, the relationship appeared to be starkly uneven. With robyn's account you begin to understand how whitney went from being a carefree, happy, excited teen who was finding herself and figuring herself out to an addict. When she finally accepted, Crawford could see why Costner related to Houston and knew the star had to be her.

These ladies were thick as thieves for 20+ years, but she doesn’t dish on Houston’s worst behaviors, and she doesn’t even bash Bobby Brown very much, which would have been easy to do, because Bobby Brown is an absolute piece of garbage. People would try to talk to her about Houston, or she would read something in a magazine and suddenly, “I would be in that zone of looking out for her and trying to figure it all out.The saddest part about all of this; Whitney was in love with Robyn, I truly believe that, but because of being raised in the church and Whitney's religious beliefs, a relationship with a woman was not permitted during her time. Once, while Crawford was on tour with Houston in London, she went on a date with one of her dancers. In 1988, when Crawford suggested to Cissy that the singer needed help for her drug addiction, she was given short shrift. Both Houston and Crawford had been raised in God-fearing households, at a time when, she says, “you were either this, or you were that”.

This would be the pattern of their lives together for the next 10 years: Crawford as the person to whom Houston would turn as the pressures of fame intensified. Tror inte heller att Robyn berättar allt, men hela poängen är väl att Whitney aldrig fick ha något privatliv eller sätta egna gränser. Robyn was left on the outside looking in and when Bobby Brown and his family came on the scene, Robyn was totally excommunicated.In the end, Robyn’s biases against all of Whitney’s potential partners and her impossible longing for the “old Whitney” made it hard for me to respect much of this book. Crawford and Houston shared a few more moments of connection after the author quit the business of Nippy, but they were increasingly far between. It’s refreshing to hear the story of Whitney’s rise and fall from a different perspective other than that of her family. This is a searing indictment of the Houston family and the way they exploited and manipulated Whitney, enabled her addiction, drove a wedge between her and the love of her life, and only served themselves.

People can grow up in many ways, and I think Robyn was only able to see the negative ways Whitney grew, because she was not the same teenager she met in East Orange, the same person she had all these amazing memories with.It was the summer of 1980, and both young women were running youth activities at a community center in their shared hometown of East Orange, New Jersey. For years, Houston was actively homophobic, publicly comparing homosexuality to bestiality, then privately blasting Crawford for not denying the rumours about their relationship strenuously enough – behaviour Crawford disliked, but went along with. The people that ultimately loved and had her best interest at heart were tossed aside as she spiraled down. However, years later at the 1991 Welcome home heroes concert, Whitney sang this song and Robyn herself mentioned when she sang she sounded like she was in agony. Houston was often publicly gracious toward Crawford, thanking her in liner notes and at award ceremonies, but Crawford was understandably pained by Houston's increasingly vigorous denials under continued questioning about her rumored bisexuality.

Crawford describes the dynamic that LGBT kids have experienced from the beginning of time: the two could be open about being inseparable best friends, but had to hide the physical side of their relationship. I felt compelled to stand up at that point, not only to lift her legacy, but to honour our friendship, because friends aren’t something that you should just toss away. It is a strength of her book that it evokes with such clarity a different era of stardom – one in which singers like Houston, Michael Jackson and Madonna dominated fewer media outlets, and at a higher voltage, than stars in today’s atomised media. Sometimes when seeing family and loved ones heading down a path of destruction, you just have to step back and show tough love.

After decades of silence, Robyn Crawford, close friend, collaborator, and confidante of Whitney Houston, shares her story.