Legendary Pop singer and actress Whitney Houston has died at age 48 on Saturday night.
Police confirmed she was found unconscious in her hotel room at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles where she had been staying as a guest, and was pronounced dead at 3:55pm (11.55pm GMT). Fire department personnel and hotel staff tried in vain to resuscitate her before the police arrived.
No reason for her death has yet been disclosed but police have said there was “no obvious signs of criminal intent” and that “She has been positively identified by friends and family that were with her at the hotel.
Houston, who struggled with addiction problems over the years, sold more than 170 million albums, singles and videos over her career.
The daughter of singer Cissy Houston, Whitney was born on August 9, 1963, in Newark, New Jersey. Famed music producer Clive Davis reportedly spotted Houston 20 years later in a New York nightclub, signing her on the spot.
The singer’s rendition of the national anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl, days into the first Persian Gulf War, earned raves and cemented her place in the American musical landscape.
After “The Bodyguard,” Houston went on to appear in several more films in the 1990s, including “Waiting to Exhale.”
In 2000, Houston earned her sixth Grammy for best female R&B performance and, a month later, she was named female artist of the decade at the “Soul Train” Music Awards. Houston died on the eve of this year’s Grammy Awards.
Her career stalled, however, in subsequent years as she entered rehab for addiction problems. In May 2011, Houston got help for her much-publicized struggle with drugs and alcohol.
In a 2009 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Houston recalled how her mother arrived one day at her doorstep at her daughter’s house with sheriff’s officers and a court order in a drug intervention. She talked about doing cocaine and smoking marijuana.
Houston had a high-profile and tumultuous marriage to Bobby Brown, a former “New Edition” star who has had multiple brushes with the law. The couple appeared together in the mid-2000s on the reality show “Being Bobby Brown.”
Producer Clive Davis steered Houston’s career for more than 25 years, also serving as a mentor.
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