Whitney Houston: How Robyn Crawford Felt About Her Denying Their Past Romance
Whitney Houston’s marriage to Bobby Brown isn’t the only relationship in her life that kept the media interested. In the early days of Houston’s career, her relationship with her longtime friend and assistant Robyn Crawford kept the rumor mill going. Houston denied they were ever more than friends, and it took decades for Crawford to say otherwise. Crawford eventually revealed she felt slighted at times for Houston denying such.
Robyn Crawford says her relationship with Whitney Houston was more than platonic at one point
Crawford and Houston met as teenagers while working together at a New Jersey summer camp. They moved in together and lived as roommates, and Crawford says their friendship turned romantic for a brief period of time.
But Crawford said that because of Houston’s religious upbringing, and her recently signing a record contract, Houston ended the romantic part of things. Instead, she requested that the two remain best friends.
Crawford honored her wish and eventually became Houston’s employee. She’s also credited with keeping Houston on track while in the throes of her addiction.
Whitney Houston denied ever being romantically involved with Robyn Crawford
Insiders claimed they all knew that Houston and Crawford had a deeper relationship than being friends at one point. In the Can I Be Me documentary, Houston’s musical collaborator Rickey Minor revealed that he believed Houston was sexually fluid. But whenever asked by reporters whether she and Crawford were more than friends, Houston would deny it.
“I don’t make it a habit of putting it out on the street who I’m sleeping with or who I’m with,” she said in a 1991 interview. “My private life, that little piece of my life is mine and I want to keep that. Not that I’m sleeping with this one, that one, or that one, and this one – I’m not a promiscuous person like that. I think it’s because they don’t know and because I do keep my life to myself. You can’t establish a relationship in the eye of the public because they’ll tear it apart. Just recently, I became friends with Randall Cunningham, now they have us married. I’m having Eddie’s [Murphy] baby. I’ve come from being a lesbian to a whore.”
Robyn Crawford admits she was upset by some things Whitney Houston said about their relationship publicly
Crawford didn’t come forward with the confirmation of a love affair with Houston until 2019 in her book A Song For You: My Life With Whitney Houston. In an interview with The Chi creator Lena Waithe for Oprah.com, Crawford revealed she wasn’t always a fan of the way Houston handled questions about their relationship.
“I didn’t like some of the things she said. I didn’t feel like it was helping things. But she didn’t care at that point. She would say: ‘They’ll say what they want to say,’” Crawford explained.
She elaborated, noting that Houston didn’t like being put into a box. “And Whitney also always pushed back on labels,” she added. “That went for her music, too. She didn’t sing Black music or white music; she just sang.”
The two friends weren’t in communication when Whitney Houston died
Crawford quit working for Houston in 2000 amid her “My Love Is Your Love” world tour after an argument with Brown. They remained in scattered communication from there, with their final conversation taking place after Houston and Brown’s alleged domestic dispute in 2003. Crawford says it was the last time they spoke. Still, she never planned on never speaking again, but Houston would die before they had a chance to reconnect.
