Whitney Houston's Off-Key Night Disappoints London Fans

Whitney Houston may have performed her megahit "I Will Always Love You" at her sold-out London concert on Sunday – but apparently scores of her fans didn't share the sentiment.

Despite paying up to $170 a ticket, disappointed concertgoers streamed out of the singer's show at the O2 Arena after Houston failed to hit the high notes and she rasped her way through several attempts at the song. To her credit, the singer, 46, knew she was disappointing the crowd, and she shook her head and tried to reassure the audience.

"Oh, it's going to come," Houston announced mid-song. "I wanna do it – but [my voice] just doesn’t want to. I have long talks with her. Well, tonight she's getting a little temperamental."

Houston, whose European tour has been plagued by her respiratory illness, also blamed her vocal troubles on the venue's air-conditioning, which she told fans "turned my soprano off." (Houston also cited the a/c as the cause of similar problems at her Birmingham, England, show weeks before.)

For real fans, though, the singer's apparent performance troubles were no problem at all. Many were just thrilled to see her in the U.K. again, since her last official tour date in the British capital in 1999.

"She was incredibly brave to come out and perform," concert attendee Maria Montague told PEOPLE at the show. "Even though she struggled at times, I think she did well considering what's she's been through."

According to longtime fan Kevin Hughes: "The voice has definitely deteriorated, but the showmanship and the sheer entertainment value is still there. She’s still a star."

The British press, however, didn't quite agree.

Whitney Houston: 'I'm Feeling Great'

It was allergies, not a relapse, says Whitney Houston, who's now out of the hospital and eager to return to the stage.

"I'm feeling great," she told People Magazine exclusively. "I'm just ready to move on and continue my world tour."

Hospitalized earlier this week for an upper respiratory infection, Houston postponed the first four shows of her European tour, fueling tabloid speculation that she's in a downward drug spiral.

Houston calls such reports "ridiculous" and says, "At this point, I just don't respond. I don't even read it."

Checking into a hospital in Paris was doctor's orders. "My health is terrific," says the singer, 46. "But this is a time when I get a lot of allergies."

Houston's tour will resume on April 13 in Birmingham, England, and will continue through June. "I'm doing what I love to do, which is singing," Houston says. "The best part is seeing all of my fans around the world."

Whitney Houston is Admitted to a Paris Hospital

Singer Whitney Houston has been admitted to a hospital in Paris suffering from nose and throat problems, it has been reported. News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) said a member of the star's entourage had revealed she was also suffering from an infection.

Houston, 46, had already postponed the first date of her European tour because of an respiratory infection. Her first UK in Manchester on Thursday has also been postponed.

The news agency source said she was being treated for a swelling of the mucus membranes in the nose and pharynx.

Houston, one of the world's most successful music artists - who has sold more than 170 million records, has been dogged by ill-health as she attempts a major comeback.

After a battle with drug addiction and the break-up of her 14-year marriage to singer Bobby Brown, she released a new album I Look to You in 2009. The album was well received by critics, topping the US chart and charting at number three in the UK.

But a lackluster performance at a recent show in Australia had fans questioning whether the singer could still match the range of her early vocal performances.

Whitney Houston Dances in Face of Illness Report

The Queen of the Night seems to be just fine, thank you. Whitney Houston wowed the crowd at her recent concert in Osaka, Japan, despite tabloid reports that she's physically struggling through her comeback tour. "She looked like she was having so much fun," says a concertgoer. "She was in great shape and kept up with her dancers!"

MUZOPHILE: The Decade Collection #32

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American Music Awards Performances

Many of the big names in the music world performed at last night's American Music Awards. Here are my favorite performances:

ADAM LAMBERT


LADY GAGA


JENNIFER LOPEZ


BLACK EYED PEAS


WHITNEY HOUSTON


JANET JACKSON


SHAKIRA


MARY J. BLIGE


KELLY CLARKSON


JAY-Z & ALICIA KEYS


CARRIE UNDERWOOD

Whitney Houston Performing on theAmerican Music Awards

Whitney Houston will perform at the 2009 American Music Awards.

The 46-year-old singer will join other previously announced acts including Rihanna, Green Day, Shakira, Mary J. Blige, Daughtry, Keith Urban, Lady Gaga, Eminem, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lopez, The Black Eyed Peas, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Adam Lambert. This is going to be one heck of a show!

The show will be broadcast live from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, November 22nd at 8:00 pm (EST) on ABC.

Bobby Hints That Whitney Houston is Bisexual

Bobby Brown has a new book and of course he is going to write/talk about Whitney Houston. I haven't read the book, but this one passage has been circulating through the internet. It is very enlightening and is going to get a bunch of notice. Bobby says the only reason Whitney married Bobby was to stop all of the lesbian and bisexual rumors. Bobby married Whitney for love.

"(The marriage) was doomed from the very beginning... I think we got married for all the wrong reasons. Now, I realize Whitney had a different agenda than I did when we got married...I believe her agenda was to clean up her image, while mine was to be loved and have children."

If you read the next passage carefully and you can see that Bobby hints that Whitney is bisexual. It is very carefully edited by the publishers. It is just a hint or a tease but doesn't come right out and say she is.

"The media was accusing her of having a bisexual relationship with her assistant, Robin Crawford. Since she was the American Sweetheart and all, that didn't go too well with her image...In Whitney's situation, the only solution was to get married and have kids. That would kill all speculation, whether it was true or not."

Whether it was true or not. When you just leave that hanging out there with no closure you know what the perception is going to be and now Whitney is going to be asked about it and Bobby is and don't be surprised if some other people come out of hiding for some paychecks from tabloids.

Whitney Houston to Tour After Almost a Decade

Whitney Houston will start touring in Europe this spring and if we're lucky, maybe the singing sensation will bring her tour to the US. This will be the first time Whitney has toured in the UK in over 10 years.

"This is my first full tour since the 'My Love Is Your Love' tour in 1999 and I am so excited to be performing for my fans around the world after all this time," Whitney said. "I am putting together a great show and cannot wait to perform the songs from my new album I Look to You along with some of your favorites."

The 46-year-old star will also make a TV appearance on talent show The X Factor this Sunday, her first UK TV appearance in 12 years. Whitney, who has sold over 140 million albums worldwide, is making her long-awaited musical comeback after overcoming drug addiction.

MUZOPHILE: The Decade Collection #82

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Whitney Houston: God Keeps Me Off Drugs

Whitney Houston is still tempted by drugs, but instead of surrendering to the urge she relies on a higher power to see her through.

"Don't think I don't have desires for it," the Grammy winner admitted during the second part of her interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show Tuesday. "It takes me a minute to cleanse ... I have to pray it away."

On Monday's show, Houston told Winfrey that at times she was a heavy user of marijuana and rock cocaine. On Tuesday's show, she said that these days she occasionally will have a drink, but "no weed, no coke."

She takes things "one day at a time," and "if I get weak, I know who I can turn to," she said. "I know God loves me."

Houston, 46, also said God gave her the courage to leave what she described as an emotionally abusive 14-year marriage to Bobby Brown. Her husband "did not want me to leave," she said. But she prayed to God, "if you give me one day of strength, I will go out that door and I will not look back."

That day came in 2006, when she told Brown she was going out for sugar and milk but instead hopped on a plane for Los Angeles. Before that, she said, she moved their daughter, Bobbi Kristina, in with her brother and sister-in-law, who cared for the child during fifth and sixth grades, "while I just tried to get it all together."

Change Daughter's Life

Houston said she needed to remove her daughter from Brown because she had seen enough, witnessing a time when Brown spat on her. Houston tried to explain to her daughter. "I said, 'But it's all right.' She said, 'No, it's not. No, it's not.' "

When Houston moved Bobbi Kristina to live with her in Los Angeles, the girl was "very angry" and didn't understand why she had to be separated from her father. But Houston said she didn't want her exposed to Brown's unfaithfulness. "I can't let her think this is love," she said.

Houston said she "kept knocking on that door" and "telling her I loved her," and Bobbi Kristina eventually witnessed her father with other women and making promises he didn't keep. "She said, 'No. Divorce him. Let him go,' " recalls Houston. Houston and Brown divorced in 2007.

Jackson's Death 'Devastating'

Now 16, Bobbi Kristina is doing well, writing and singing. "She's more and more like me every day," says her mother. During a taping, Winfrey turned to Bobbi Kristina in the audience. "Words can't explain how proud of I am [of my mother]," says the teen, adding that she plans to follow in Houston's footsteps and pursue a singing career.

Winfrey also asked Houston about Michael Jackson, a friend for 20 years. "Devastating," Houston said of his death, adding that she knew he had been on painkillers at one time.

While together in 2001 during the taping of Jackson's 30th anniversary special, Houston said Jackson looked so sickly, "I was getting scared." Admitting that she herself was so thin because of drug use, she said when she saw Jackson she thought, "I didn't want to go that route."

Bobby Brown: Whitney Houston and I Corrupted Each Other

As Whitney Houston bares her past troubles to Oprah Winfrey, ex-husband Bobby Brown adds his side of their tragic story, saying both were to blame for their tumultuous relationship.

"I think we corrupted each other," Brown, 40, tells The Insider. "I don't think she hurt me or I hurt her. I just think we had a 14-year marriage that had its ups and downs and not many people understood it."

Brown says he used "an awful lot" of cocaine – "a powerful drug," he notes – starting after his marriage to Houston in 1992.

"I think I was bored," says Brown, who also opens up to VH1's Behind the Music on Sept. 24. "I had just gotten married and things weren't right. Unfortunately, I turned to alcohol and drugs."

Brown still feels the sting of their failed marriage, saying the first time her met her at the Soul Train Music Awards is "one of the things I try to forget."

Whitney Houston: Bobby Brown Spit on Me

Jealousy and emotional abuse derailed Whitney Houston's once-happy marriage to Bobby Brown, the R&B diva revealed during an emotional interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Telling the talk show host about her post-Bodyguard career highs, Houston says her then-husband couldn't handle her success. "I think somewhere inside, something happens to a man when a woman has that much control or has that much fame," the singer said during her much-hyped appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show that aired Monday. (Part two of the interview will air on Tuesday).

Asked if Brown was jealous of her, Houston, 46, told Winfrey, "he's not going to like this, but yes."

Tried to Make Him Happy

But Houston said she tried to play down her fame, referring to herself as "Mrs. Brown" and even agreeing to appear in the now-parodied Being Bobby Brown reality show to make him happy. "I did it for him," Houston said. "How could you do a reality show – and I'm your wife – and not have [me] in it?"

Another reason for appearing on the show: Houston wanted to prove a skeptical public wrong – to show that their union was strong.

"I wasn't happy with the marriage. I was losing it," she said. "[But] I was determined to prove [my critics] all wrong."

"After a while you start to lose the real concept of the love [we shared]," she continued. "I was trying to make a statement: 'You guys aren't going to win. We have a family and I'm just not going to let you do that to us.'"

Drugs & Abuse

More troubling, though, were Houston's revelations that Brown was abusive. "Emotionally he was abusive," she said. "Physically, no way. I was raised with two [brothers] and I would fight you back with anything I could find."

While the R&B superstar said her ex-husband "slapped [her] once," she retaliated and hit back. Houston also revealed that after The Bodyguard, she and Brown began to do more drugs – specifically cocaine and marijuana. "That's it," she said, adding, "He liked to drink."

And when Brown would drink, she revealed, things would get particularly nasty. One extremely low point occurred on a night she threw him a birthday party in Atlanta.

"When we got back to the house," Houston said, "he spit on me. He spit on me. He actually spit on me. And my daughter was coming down the stairs and she saw it. That was pretty intense. I didn't grow up with that and I didn't understand why that occurred – [why] he had such a hate for me because I loved him so much."

Downward Spiral

She continued to love him, she says, even as he was unfaithful. "Holy matrimony was a very serious thing for me. I was going to keep my vow. I never cheated," she says. "The only thing I did was the drugs. . . . He was too promiscuous, dragging dirt into my home. It disturbed me."

Her drugs of choice were marijuana and rock cocaine. "I was trying to hide the pain," she says.

Along the way, Houston says, she gave up on her career. "I had totally forgotten about that life," she says. "I had so much money by that point. I wasn't thinking about any of that."

Star Sighting: Voices Carry

Whitney Houston rocks a trench coat and the crowd Tuesday during a show taped at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park (and scheduled to air today on Good Morning America). The singer, who just released her sixth album I Look to You, performed new songs including "Million Dollar Bill" and favorites like "I'm Every Woman."

Whitney's Return!

The wait is over! Whitney has returned!

It’s been years in the making and finally, the day has arrived: Whitney Houston’s first studio album in seven years goes on sale today!

Reviews have been generally quite positive for "I Look to You" even though most critics agree that Whitney’s voice does not have the out-of-this-world range it once did.

LA Times music critic Ann Powers wrote: “I Look to You,” the singer’s comeback after nearly a decade of ignominy, is a costly renovation overseen by her mentor, Clive Davis, and enacted by the best craftspeople money can buy, including the producers Akon, Stargate and Nate “Danja” Hills and the songwriters Diane Warren and Alicia Keys.

I just downloaded the CD from iTunes, I am must say...I LOVE IT! Welcome back Whitney. We've missed you!

Whitney’s ‘I Look To You’ Release Date Moved Up

Fueled by the continuous excitement, Arista Records has moved the release date of Whitney Houston’s “I Look To You” up to August 31st.

As a gift to her fans, a free download of the album’s title track, powered by Yahoo! Music, is available now at www.whitneyhouston.com until July 31st. “I Look To You,” a sweeping ballad with Whitney’s signature soaring vocals that fans have come to love, was written by R. Kelly.

Whitney Houston is Back in Form for CD Launch

In London to unveil her new album at a VIP party Tuesday night, Whitney Houston – looking glam in a black and white Dolce & Gabbana gown – signaled she was back.

With her mentor, music mogul Clive Davis, playing nine tracks from her upcoming album to be released in September, Houston, 45, "looked radiant," a source at the party at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel told People.

"She gave an amazing speech saying how much the album comes from the heart and telling of her love for Clive Davis," the source added. "She was also saying how much she loved being in London … and you could tell she was happy to be here."

The CD will be Houston's seventh studio album and represents a comeback after a seven-year hiatus that included some well-publicized troubles. As for the album, some of the songs were finished and others not.

Thanking Davis, Houston told party guests, "When Clive called me I was pretty ready to buy my island home [and retire], but he said, 'No, you're going to sing again, people want to hear you,' " reports Billboard.com.

She added, "I hope that these songs stay with you for a lifetime." Davis assured the crowd that "you won't forget it after you hear it."

Among the tracks heard were the title song "I Look To You," by R. Kelly, and an Alicia Keys song, "One Million Dollar Bill." Also included was a Diane Warren-penned song, "I Don't Know My Own Strength," and a duet with Akon, "Like I Never Left."

One Dress, One Night, Two Divas

It was a real-time fashion faceoff last night as Whitney Houston and Madonna both hit the scene in Europe in their snow leopard-print Dolce & Gabbana dresses.

Madonna hit the after-party for her Milan concert at the Gold restaurant, owned by longtime pals Domenico Dolce & Stefano Gabbana, along with her “good friend” Jesus Luz in her printed sheath.

Meanwhile, in London, Whitney attended a playback party for her new album I Look to You in the same curve-hugging dress. We love seeing both singers looking so hot

Star Sighting: Undefeated Whitney

Whitney Houston's ready for her comeback! The glam singer arrives for a press preview of her new album Undefeated, out on September 1st, at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London on Tuesday.

Madonna 'Can't Stop Crying' Over Michael Jackson

The sudden death of Michael Jackson jolted his friends and family, a second blow to the entertainment world after it lost another icon, Farrah Fawcett, just hours earlier.

"I can't stop crying over the sad news," Madonna says. "I have always admired Michael Jackson. The world has lost one of the greats, but his music will live on forever! My heart goes out to his three children and other members of his family. God bless."

Lisa Marie Presley, who was briefly married to Jackson in the mid-1990s, says, "I am so very sad and confused with every emotion possible. I am heartbroken for his children, who I know were everything to him, and for his family. This is such a massive loss on so many levels, words fail me."

"My heart is overcome with sadness for the devastating loss of my true friend Michael," adds Brooke Shields, who raised eyebrows when she briefly dated Jackson. "He was an extraordinary friend, artist and contributor to the world. I join his family and his fans in celebrating his incredible life and mourning his untimely passing."

Elizabeth Taylor, one of Jackson's closest and longstanding friends, was "too devastated" to issue a statement, her rep says, while Quincy Jones, who produced Jackson's biggest hits, says, "I am absolutely devastated at this tragic and unexpected news. For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don't have the words."

Cher, calling in to Larry King Live on CNN, shared many memories of Jackson, including dancing together on the Queen Mary and seeing the musical Dreamgirls together. "I am having a million reactions," said Cher. "When I think of him, I think of this young boy, this teenager I first met … He was a great teenager, optimistic and adorable."

She also praised his talent. "He was a great singer. You can't write him off as just a pop [star]. He was a genius like Ray Charles … He had a gift… He was able to connect with people."

Whitney Houston, who has battled her own demons and is on the verge of a comeback, just as Jackson was, released a statement saying simply, "I am full of grief."

Actress Jane Fonda used Twitter to express her grief writing, "I am stunned. My friend, Michael Jackson is dead. He lived with me for a week on the Golden Pond set after 'Thriller.' "

In a statement Thursday afternoon Britney Spears said, "I was so excited to see his show in London. We were going to be on tour in Europe at the same time and I was going to fly in to see him. He has been an inspiration throughout my entire life and I'm devastated he's gone!"

Neil Portnow, president of the Recording Academy, which honored Jackson with 13 Grammys, says, "Rarely has the world received a gift with the magnitude of artistry, talent, and vision as Michael Jackson. He was a true musical icon."

In a long, heartfelt statement Usher said he was "deeply saddened" by the loss and paid tribute to Jackson's legacy. "May God cover you Michael. We all lift your name up in prayer. I pray for the entire Jackson family particularly Michael's mother, children and all his fans that loved him so much. I would not be the artist, performer, and philanthropist I am today without the influence of Michael. I have great admiration and respect for him and I'm so thankful I had the opportunity to meet and perform with such a great entertainer, who in so many ways, transcended the culture. He broke barriers, he changed radio formats! With music, he made it possible for people like Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama to impact the mainstream world. His legacy is unparalleled Michael Jackson will never be forgotten."

Another star who was clearly influenced by Jackson, Justin Timberlake, also paid tribute to the pop star. "We have lost a genius and a true ambassador of not only Pop music but of all music," he wrote on his Web site. "He has been an inspiration to multiple generations and I will always cherish the moments I shared with him on stage and all of the things I learned about music from him and the time we spent together. My heart goes out to his family and loved ones."

On his Web site, former child actor Corey Feldman, who was once very close friends with Jackson, posted a statement mourning his old pal. "I come to you today with great sadness, acknowledging the loss of the greatest entertainer in the history of mankind. For me he was more than that, he was my idol, he was a role model, he was someone to cry to when my childhood was unbearable, he was a brother, he was a dear friend," Feldman writes. "Unfortunately Michael and I had a falling out on Septenmber 10th 2001 and that broken friendship had never been repaired … I am filled with tremendous sadness and remorse. All I choose to remember from this point is the good times we shared and what an inspiration he was to me and the rest of the world. Nobody will ever be able to do what Michael Jackson has done in this industry, and he was so close to doing it all again. I am truly, and deeply sorry for all of the heartbroken fans and supporters worldwide."