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[From New York Newsday] 'I Had a Bad Habit' By Robert Kahn "Is it alcohol? Is it marijuana? Is it cocaine? Is it pills?" Diane Sawyer prods Houston at one point during the "Primetime" interview, which was conducted at the Atlanta home Houston shares with singer Bobby Brown. "It has been at times," Houston responds. "All?" Sawyer asks. "At times," Houston tells her. "Uh-hm." Houston, who dodges a question about whether she "still parties," says she doesn't think of herself as an addict. "I like to think I had a bad habit, which can be broken," she says. "I'm not a person who wants to die. I'm a person who has life and wants to live." When Sawyer asks Houston to name the Greatest Drug of All - "the biggest devil" - the diva turns the question around: "That would be me," she says. "Nobody makes me do anything I don't want to do. So the bigger devil is me." Houston, who ruled the 1980s pop charts, has fought a barrage of bad publicity since security officials at a Hawaii airport found half an ounce of marijuana in her purse in January 2000. Charges against her were dismissed, but rumors she was experiencing personal problems flew when she bowed out of a scheduled appearance on the Academy Awards telecast in 2000, claiming laryngitis. She then shocked fans during the September 2001 Michael Jackson tribute concert when she appeared skeletal and sunken, upsetting even longtime acquaintances such as Barbara Walters, who publicly expressed concern for the entertainer's well-being. This September, Houston's 81-year-old father filed a $100-million breach of contract suit against the singer. In the interview with Sawyer, airing at 9 p.m., Houston denies rumors she suffers from an eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia but acknowledges there have been times when her dietary habits were "awful." "I'm not sick," the waifish warbler says. "I am not sick. Let's get that straight. I am not sick, OK? I've always been a thin girl. I am not going to be fat, ever. Whitney is not going to be fat, ever. OK?" Sawyer also gets Houston to dish about her controversial departure from the 2000 Academy Awards. "I was fired from the gig, because I was not getting along with the guy that was directing," she says, referring to Burt Bacharach. "I didn't mind. I didn't really want to do it anyway." And Houston says she's in immense pain over her relationship with her father. According to the suit filed by John Houston, the singer was in financial straits and facing marijuana possession charges in Hawaii until John Houston Entertainment LLC helped get the marijuana charges dropped. When John Houston Entertainment asked to be paid for its services, the company was denied, the lawsuit claims. "It hurts," Whitney Houston says. "My father is 81 and very sick.
Somebody who my father's associated with has put fear in his heart. We'll work it out,
'cause no matter what, he's my dad. And I'm his daughter. And I love him and I know he
loves me." NEWSFILE: 5 DECEMBER 2002 |