Oprah Winfrey Reveals She ‘Begged’ Studio Audience To Not Leak Whitney Houston’s Fall On Her Show

Oprah Winfrey is recalling the loyalty of her former talk show’s studio audience. On Tuesday, June 23, the author received Cannes Lions’ LionHeart Award and revealed in a conversation onstage that the final time Whitney Houston joined the show in 2009, she fell off the stage after relapsing on drugs. “I had such trust from the “Oprah” show audience that Whitney did – I think it was her last show with us – and she had gone back on drugs. The first interview I did with her when we had gone behind stage and I asked her about her intention she was clean, but the day she came to my show then to perform in front of the audience, she was not and she fell off of the stage,” Winfrey said in part. The media mogul went on to share that she knew the impact it would have on Houston if the story was leaked and “begged” the studio audience to keep it to themselves. “And I knew that if that story got out, that she’d fallen off of the stage, that everybody would be – that she would be destroyed by that. And so even though the audience was there and the audience had cameras, I begged them not to put those pictures out because it would ruin her life. And they did not. That would not happen today, I can tell you that.” The legendary singer performed “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength” in Sept. 2009 as part of a two-part appearance on the former daytime talk show.