SOUTH AFRICA: South Africans say singer Whitney Houston's sudden death is a great loss

Record ID: 458292

  • Title: SOUTH AFRICA: South Africans say singer Whitney Houston's sudden death is a great loss
  • Date: 14th February 2012
  • Summary: CHAKA SINGING SONG DEDICATED TO HOUSTON
  • Embargoed: 29th February 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: South Africa, South Africa
  • Country: South Africa
  • Topics: Entertainment,Obituaries
  • Reuters ID: LVA57IXUGAW7YFJPF85OJISR3WZK
  • Story Text: Whitney Houston fans in South Africa pay tribute and send their condolences following her death on Saturday (February 11, 2012).
    Houston, whose soaring voice lifted her to the top of the pop music world, but whose personal decline was fuelled by years of drug abuse, died on Saturday afternoon in a fourth-floor room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel at the age of 48.
    "We are so saddened about her sudden death, you know it's somebody that inspired our children even inspired us, so real it's great loss. I am saddened by her sudden death," said artist Dorah Mogorosi.
    "She was a shooting star and unfortunately her life was dammed to shoot to soon," said Johannesburg resident, Susan.
    "It's just so devastating to know that a beautiful woman like this, with such great posture, with the greatest voices of them all, can just go like that," said singer and humanitarian Yvonne Chaka.
    Houston met former South African President Nelson Mandela in Pretoria in November 1994 when she performed in three concerts around the country.
    She also sang at an anti-apartheid concert in London in 1988 prior to Mandela's release from prison. He was set free after 27 years of incarceration in 1990. The singer had refused to participate with agencies that worked in South Africa before his release.
    Police and the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office were continuing their investigation to determine a cause of death, which came on the eve of the Grammy Awards at the same hotel where Houston's mentor, record mogul Clive Davis, was holding an annual pre-event party.
    The Los Angeles Times, citing an unnamed source briefed on the case, reported that investigators were trying to discern whether she might have drowned in a bathtub shortly before she was set to attend the pre-Grammy gala.
    The Times said Houston, dishevelled, sweaty and smelling of alcohol, was behaving erratically when she stopped by the Hilton two days earlier, accompanied by her daughter, for rehearsals.
    She was seen flailing her hands frenetically, skipping around the ballroom and wandering aimlessly through the lobby, the newspaper said in its online editions.
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