Whitney Houston’s sister-in-law is attempting to set the record straight after a video interview of Oprah Winfrey sharing startling details about one of the late singer’s final performances went viral online.
Pat Houston, who once served as Whitney Houston’s manager and is also the executor of her estate, issued a statement on Instagram Tuesday pushing back on Winfrey’s description of her sister-in-law’s behavior during a 2009 appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
“Whitney absolutely fell off stage, but 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,” Pat Houston wrote. “Like many people, she faced personal battles, but it is inaccurate and unfair to attach that struggle to every performance or every chapter of her life.”
Whitney Houston released what would turn out to be her final studio album, “I Look to You,” in 2009.
Lester Cohen via Getty Images
“What the studio audience witnessed on stage was the result of discipline, talent, and commitment not the assumptions others project,” she continued. “Whitney’s humanity included triumphs and struggles, but on that day, she showed up as the professional and gifted artist she always worked to be. We owe her the dignity of telling the truth not repeating myths.”
Whitney Houston, whose experiences with drug and alcohol addiction were well-documented, died in 2012 at age 48. Coroners ruled her death an accidental drowning with “atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use” as contributing factors.
Winfrey spoke at length about one of her last encounters with Whitney Houston during an appearance at France’s Cannes Lions, where she received the festival’s LionHeart Award, this week.
Oprah Winfrey reveals Whitney Houston once fell off the stage while performing on her show, but she asked the audience not to tell the media about it.
“I begged them not to put those pictures out, because it would ruin her life. And they did not.” pic.twitter.com/ATri84hsLn
— Variety (@Variety) June 23, 2026
According to Winfrey, Whitney Houston was “clean” when she sat for the interview portion of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2009 amid a promotional tour for what would turn out to be her final studio album, “I Look to You.”
When the nine-time Grammy winner returned to the show on a subsequent day for a live performance in front of a studio audience, however, Winfrey said the singer “had gone back on drugs.”
“She fell off of the stage,” she explained. “I knew that if that story got out, that she’d fallen off of the stage, 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,” she added.
Reaction to Winfrey’s remarks was mixed.
“But what’s the point on saying that now? Why? Allow her to rest in peace,” one person wrote. “Might have saved her life if it made her get help,” another added.
