A SONG FOR YOU

My Life With Whitney Houston

By Robyn Crawford

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In the last two years, two documentaries about Whitney Houston’s life have been released, with dueling provenances. In 2017 came “Whitney: Can I Be Me,” by the dogged muckraker Nick Broomfield; last year, it was followed by the family-sanctioned “Whitney.”

Surprisingly, the films agreed on several things: Houston was an uncommon vocal genius, perhaps without professional peer; Houston’s career hit a precipitous decline during her marriage to Bobby Brown; Houston was in constant battle with her drug addiction. The tragic arc of Houston’s life — she died in 2012, at the age of 48, of an accidental drowning complicated by heart disease and cocaine use — isn’t much up for debate, or denial.

But both films concede there’s something that they don’t yet, or possibly can’t ever, know: the full depth of Houston’s relationship with Robyn Crawford, her longtime friend and executive assistant turned creative director. One of the people who knew Houston the best, Crawford is a cipher in both documentaries, appearing in old footage but never sitting for an interview.