Whitney Houston Enters Drugs Rehab Program...

[Reuters Report]

Singer Whitney Houston enters drug rehab program
By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop star Whitney Houston has entered a drug rehabilitation program in an undisclosed location, her publicist said on Monday.

The Grammy winning singer and actress, who is married to singer Bobby Brown, "thanks everyone for their support and prayers," publicist Nancy Seltzer said. The couple, married since 1992, has a daughter, Bobbi Kristina, who was born in 1993.

Seltzer would not disclose what facility Houston had chosen or how long she expected to be in treatment.

During a 2002 interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, the 40-year-old pop diva admitted to using alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and prescription drugs but denied rumors that she had used highly addictive crack cocaine.

She told Sawyer she had stopped taking drugs with the help of a spiritual advisor. "I'm beyond it. It's past. It's done," she said then.

The interview followed a string of canceled appearances -- notably the 2000 Academy Awards telecast -- erratic behavior and a dramatic weight loss that provoked rumors that Houston was ill or dying.

In 2000, airport screeners in Hawaii said that they found marijuana in her bag, but Houston never faced drug charges after court officials determined she did not need treatment.

Brown, 35, who has a history of run-ins with the law dating back to his youth in Boston, was sentenced to 60 days in jail last month for violating probation on a drunken driving case.

In December, he was charged with battery after a domestic dispute with Houston, in which police said she suffered facial injuries that included a bruise on her left cheek. He is due in in court in May on the misdemeanor charge.

Houston, considered one of the biggest pop stars of all time, was just 21 when her first album became the biggest selling female debut in history. She has since won six Grammy awards and is the first artist ever to have seven consecutive singles hit No. 1 on the Billboard music survey.

In 1992, she starred in her first feature film, "The Bodyguard," opposite Kevin Costner, and sang the theme song "I Will Always Love You." While the film performed respectably at the box office, the song became the biggest selling single in music history at that time.

She went on to star in "Waiting to Exhale," and "The Preacher's Wife" with Denzel Washington in the mid-1990s, and in recent years released two compilation CDs of her hits.

 

NEWSFILE: 16 MARCH 2004