February 11, 2025 marks 15 years to the day, singer and actress, Whitney Houston, died in Beverly Hills California, on the eve of the 54th Grammy Awards. Her death at 48, in a hotel room bathtub, was ruled as accidental drowning caused by the effects of heart disease and cocaine use.
As the world pays tribute to one of the finest voices of her generation, the man who was her bodyguard (not the fictional Kevin Costner) has shared his experiences of protecting her during a period when she was the world’s foremost entertainer.
Protecting Whitney: The Memoir of Her Bodyguard by David Roberts published on January 31, 2025 chronicles the experiences of the singer’s private close protection officer for more than seven years.
The Welshman, a trained sniper with the Metropolitan Police in London, was hired in 1988 to provide security for the UK leg of Whitney Houston’s Moment of Truth world tour.
His reservations about working with a pop star for the first time in his professional career changed the moment he met Whitney at Heathrow Airport, London. He was won over by Whitney’s amiable personality and for the next seven and a half years travelled the world keeping her safe from any potential harm.
His book is full of juicy nuggets that reveal Whitney’s pure genius and warm disposition. It is also packed with many instances of petty jealousies within a dysfunctional family, a toxic relationship with husband, Bobby Brown, infighting among her staff and anxious episodes while protecting her from deranged fans.
One-Take Houston
During the UK leg of her European tour in May 1988, Whitney went into a London studio to record the single One Moment in Time. Her bodyguard who had remined in the green room during the session, was astounded when she walked out barely 15 minutes later and while driving from the studio enquired from Whitney’s friend Robyn Crawford if something had gone wrong in the studio.
“David, there is a reason she is called One-Take Houston,” responded Crawford. “She goes in, records, and walks out.” That record became a huge global hit and was the theme song for the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea.
The missing tooth
The final concert of Whitney’s Moment of Truth world tour in Hong Kong in November 1988 was thrown into disarray when the singer lost a tooth.
As Whitney was brushing her teeth, her front tooth had come loose and gone down the plughole in the sink of a hotel. Apparently, Whitney’s front teeth were porcelain caps. Frantic efforts were made to find the missing tooth by a plumber who took apart the sink piping to no avail.
A dentist specialising in cosmetic surgery was able to replace Whitney’s cap with a temporary one and she eventually was able to get on stage, flashing that famous million-dollar smile.
Whitney and Bobby
As Whitney prepared to get on stage during an open-air concert in the US Midwest in 1991, she telephoned Bobby at his hotel room in Atlanta.
When a female voice answered the call on the other end of the line, all hell broke loose. A distraught Whitney cancelled the show and hired a private jet for $15,000 to fly to Atlanta so that she should confront Bobby and his companion.
As the author poses: “How the hell had Bobby taken this dominant female artist, loved by millions and with the brightest future imaginable, and rendered her a veritable emotional cripple?”
The Bodyguard
It is customary for musicians to introduce their band members on stage, but Whitney had other ideas during an interlude at a concert in Yokohama Arena, Japan in 1988.
After showcasing her musicians, she called out David on stage and introduced him as her bodyguard. “At first I didn’t move, being both mortified and paralysed,” he recalls in his book. “But she persisted, and I stepped out of the wings to the roar of the crowd. I engaged in a dojo-type bow without ever losing visual contact with Whitney’s smiling eyes, and retreated, at which point I realised I had not taken a breath for some thirty seconds.”
After working as Whitney’s bodyguard for seven and a half years, David’s services were terminated on October 31, 1995 when he was informed that she would from then on be touring within the US. Therefore, his international protection expertise was no longer required.
Her death in February 2012 triggered reflections on the upheavals he had witnessed in her employ. Roberts blames the entire retinue of family, staff and hangers-on for failing to take action when the red flags on her drug habit became apparent during the filming of Waiting to Exhale in 1995.
He also recalls a disastrous performance in Brunei later that year when her voice faltered right from the first song in a ’hoarse whisper, a croak of undecipherable sounds’. His conclusion? “Many did nothing. Many looked the other way. Many pretended. And many encouraged and enabled.”
