Interviewing The Interviewer...

[From ETOnline]

Whitney Houston Answers Tough Questions

December 04, 2002

WHITNEY HOUSTON comes clean in an exclusive interview with DIANE SAWYER on a special edition of "Primetime," airing tonight on ABC at 9.

In it, the five-time Grammy Award winner reveals her complicated, tumultuous marriage to BOBBY BROWN, which is both full of love and explosive feelings. "They didn't give us six minutes to last. We've gone 10 years," she shares.

She also deals with the rumors of her drug use, her no-show appearances, the death rumors in the press, and the lawsuit filed against her by her father. "I pray every day," she tells Sawyer. "I'm not the strongest every day, but I'm not the weakest, either. And I won't break."

The "Primetime" host spoke to Houston in her Atlanta home, and on tonight's ET, we have a preview of the much-anticipated broadcast.

ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT: How did you find Whitney as an interviewee?

DIANE SAWYER: She is completely fascinating. This is such an emotional ride. Sometimes she seems angry; sometimes she's tearful, and always it is a no-holds-barred, I-am-going-to-talk-to-you-about-it-all tone.

ET: Did she appear healthy to you?

DIANE: Like everybody else, we wondered what she would look like. When she walked into the room, the first thing she said to me is, "I am healthy. Whitney Houston is never going to be a fat girl, so don't suddenly expect me to balloon up."

ET: Does she feel like she is being attacked by the press?

DIANE: There are all these rumors, and they are not true: That the album is not going to come out; that she is not going to appear; and it is not true. Everything is on course as planned, and I think she knows to some extent, because, at least for the last few years, it's been a constant swirl of gossip around her all the time.

ET: You hit some very tough subjects with her. First of all the MICHAEL JACKSON concert and the question of whether she was digitally enhanced?

DIANE: We talk about the Michael Jackson concert. We talk about the fact that people actually gasped when they saw her, they were so terrified, and also that she seemed to be dying. There were headlines that said "Whitney Houston is dying," in fact, some of them said she had died. We talk about all of that.

ET: Anything on the digital enhancement?

DIANE: She knows it was digitally enhanced. She talks about the discussion beforehand and what happened.

ET: Rumored drug use?

DIANE: She talks about everything: drugs, an admittedly turbulent marriage with Bobby Brown, her health, cancellations, the rest of her life and her music.

ET: You ask her if Bobby has gone so far as to hit her.

DIANE: I ask her if he has hit her, I ask him if he has hit her. To a lot of people, they have a mysterious relationship.

ET: Does she say anything about her cancellations?

DIANE: She talks about the cancellations and the different reasons for them. There is not just one reason, and she takes us through them. She is startlingly frank about what happened beforehand and after on some of them. At one point she has an apology to make, which she makes to her fans, because the ones she regrets, she says, are the ones where the fans showed and she couldn't be there. For that she does want to say to her fans, "I love you, I love to sing, and I will be there."

ET: What does she say about her father and the lawsuit?

DIANE: You see how hurt she is by what her father has done with the lawsuit against her. It's about money. At one point she is very tearful, and she gets up, and we shut the cameras down, because it is so wounding.

NEWSFILE: 5 DECEMBER 2002