Whitney Houston Estate Denies Oprah Winfrey’s Suggestion Singer Was High When She Fell Off Stage

Whitney Houston’s estate is firing back on Oprah Winfrey’s claims that the late singer had relapsed during her final appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” On Tuesday, June 23, Winfrey received Cannes Lions’ LionHeart Award and revealed in a conversation onstage that the final time Houston joined the show in 2009, she fell off the stage when she wasn’t sober. “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. Now, Houston’s estate is shutting down the suggestion, confirming that she “absolutely fell,” but claiming it was due to the studio’s layout. “It was during a sound check and it was due to the darkness of the area and her unfamiliarity with the stage. She was absolutely not high,” the statement read in part, noting that while the legendary singer “faced personal battles,” the claims are “inaccurate and unfair to attach that struggle to every performance or every chapter of her life,” before adding, “what the studio audience witnessed on stage was the result of discipline, talent, and commitment not the assumptions others project.”