Do we like Whitney Houston?
Our score: 8 out of 10. We found no harmful words or company, a long run of charity and a stand on South Africa, and just one minor old court matter.
Whitney Houston is the voice that ruled 80s and 90s pop, and she never pretended the gift was an accident. In a 2002 ABC interview she described her singing as an “infectious thing that God had given me”. She died in February 2012, aged 48, and the catalogue has kept her in the charts conversation ever since.
The court record is thin, and honestly it is the whole list. In 2000 she was charged over about half an ounce of marijuana found at Kona airport in Hawaii. A judge delayed accepting her no-contest plea for three months, with the case to be dismissed if she met probation-like conditions. A petty misdemeanour, a quiet deal, not a pattern.
On the harm test, we went looking and came back empty-handed. No campaigning against anyone's rights, no conspiracy rabbit holes, no grievance slide, and no run of projects with people who push harm. PinkNews calls her an ally to the queer community; that is their description rather than her words, but LGBTQ+ fans have clearly held onto her.
The recent news is mostly celebration. The estate released WH1TNEY, which gathers her 11 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 singles, ahead of what would have been her 63rd birthday, and Mattel put out her first Barbie. Estate executor Pat Houston called it “a dream come true”. In June the estate pushed back on Oprah's telling of a 2009 stage fall, saying it was a lighting and soundcheck issue, and plenty of fans sided with the estate.
The good stuff is the real stuff. She avoided modelling agencies tied to apartheid South Africa and played the 1988 Freedomfest concert for Nelson Mandela at Wembley. In 1994 she toured South Africa after the election, with her foundation giving proceeds to children's charities. She also founded a children's foundation in 1989 and gave her national anthem royalties to the Red Cross.
So, would we support her? Yes. She is not here to slide anywhere, so this is a judgement on a finished record, and that record has no nasty chapter in it. The only blemish is a small old court matter, and the good she did for kids and for South Africa far outweighs it.