Born on August 9: Whitney Houston, an exceptional voice and a tragic fate

Whitney Houston was born in 1963 in Newark, New Jersey, and first made a name for herself as a model.

Whitney Houston was spotted by a talent scout from an agency while she was shopping with her mother on the streets of New York in 1980, shortly before her seventeenth birthday. For several years, American teen magazines such as "Seventeen", "Young Miss," "Mademoiselle," and even "Cosmopolitan" vied for her attention and what a photographer who worked with her once called "a million-dollar smile."

Her modeling career, of course, couldn’t withstand the whirlwind sparked by her self-titled debut album in 1985: 30 million copies sold, thirteen-time platinum, and three number-one hits on the Billboard charts (the U.S. music charts), She’s even the recipient of a Gospel Grammy Award. As the cousin of singer Dionne Warwick, her mother undoubtedly looked more favorably upon a career in show business. Since her teenage years, her mother had regularly enlisted her as a backup singer in her band. Her path was therefore clearly laid out, but her family insisted that a high school diploma was essential before a professional career could be considered. In 1982, she took the mic for “Memories” by the band Material —often described as punk-jazz—which was signed to the French label Celluloïd at the time. With its simplicity, this is undoubtedly one of her most beautiful performances. Nothing syrupy, nothing over-the-top here…

The early years of Whitney Houston’s career were like a fairy tale. Everything seemed to go her way. Until 1992, when she starred opposite Kevin Costner in “The Bodyguard,” she climbed the ladder to fame. Not even the pathetic pseudo-seduction attempt by a drunken Serge Gainsbourg —who mumbled “I want to f**k you” live on the set of the show “Champs Elysées” in Paris in April 1986—could derail her hit machine. Although host Michel Drucker saw it as a global scandal, its impact was fortunately limited, thanks to the lack of a social media echo chamber!

It’s easy (perhaps a little too easy) to see her 1992 marriage to singer Bobby Brown as the beginning of a descent into hell. She would eventually leave him due to abuse in 2006. This sinister individual, who had been incarcerated several times, clearly led her down the path of drugs, alcohol, and especially cocaine. Whitney Houston died in the bathroom of Room 434 at the Beverly Hilton on February 11 , 2012 , following, in part, a cocaine use…

More than ten years after her death, the singer’s tragic end continues to move people to tears, and around the world, her repertoire inspires numerous tributes (“tribute bands”) of varying quality. It must be said that with a vocal range of at least three octaves and an exceptional mezzo-soprano voice, it takes a lot of nerve to try to rival her. Among the hundreds of singers who perform Whitney Houston’s repertoire today, with varying degrees of success, one notable example is singer Belinda Davids, who in 2017 won the BBC show“Even Better Than The Real Thing,” as well as “Whitney: The Queen of the Night,” based on the hit London West End production. Not to mention, between 2020 and 2022, “The Whitney Houston Hologram Tour,” a rather impressive concept that seems to have been short-lived.

Concert:Â

For die-hard fans of the American diva, Belinda Davids will be performing on November 12 at the Cirque Royal in Brussels with her show “The Greatest Love of All.”

Other dates in France:

• November 3, 2026: Casino – La Grande-Motte
• November 4, 2026: Le Cepac Silo – Marseille
• November 5, 2026: Confluence Spectacles – Avignon
• November 6, 2026: Arcadium – Annecy
• November 7, 2026: Le Grand Angle – Voiron
• November 10, 2026: Théâtre Sébastopol – Lille
• November 11, 2026: Le Grand Rex – Paris
• November 14, 2026: Le Capitole – Châlons-en-Champagne
• November 18, 2026: Le Jeu de Paume – Blois
• November 19, 2026: Le Forum (Parc des Expos) – Le Mans
• November 21, 2026: Metz Congrès Robert Schuman – Metz
• November 22, 2026: L'Embarcadère – Boulogne-sur-Mer

Photo 1: Whitney Houston on stage at Forest-National in Brussels (Belgium) on October 10, 1986 (© Etienne Tordoir)

Photo 2: Belinda Davids on tour in France and Belgium with her Whitney Houston tribute show “The Greatest Love Of All” (© PR courtesy photo)