“Today is your day, Whitney. Today is your day.”
And so Pastor Joe A. Carter of New Hope Baptist Church opened the multi-hour “home going” ceremony of pop superstar Whitney Houston, a singer celebrated for her unparalleled vocals and humanized by her public struggles with addiction.
Houston was a New Jersey girl by birth, but spent a portion of her life in Atlanta, living at Country Club of the South in the mid-2000s with then-husband Bobby Brown and daughter Bobbi Kristina.
One of her most high-powered friends, film and TV mogul Tyler Perry, volunteered his private plane to carry Houston’s body from Los Angeles, where she died last Saturday, to the Jersey funeral home where her family mourned her on Friday.
Perry was also one of the first to speak at star-heavy funeral, introduced by Houston’s cousin, Dionne Warwick.
After recounting how he and Houston sat in a restaurant in Atlanta four years ago, the singer sharing candid details about her life, Perry said there were two things he learned about Houston that day.
“There was a grace that carried her. A grace that carried her from heaven down through Cissy Houston. A grace that led her to the top of the charts,” he said. “The other thing I know for sure…Whitney Houston loved the Lord. I know nothing separated her from the love of God.”
Perry’s impassioned sermon, which caused him to briefly put his hand over his mouth as emotion threatened to overcome him, concluded with him saying, “God was for her, and she is resting, singing with the angels. God bless you, Whitney. We love you so much.”
Perry then edged past Houston’s flower-laden coffin to the front pew, where he embraced members of her family.
“You just heard from someone who truly knew ‘Nippy,’” Warwick said, using Houston’s nickname.
Reportedly, Warwick and Houston’s mother, Cissy, wanted the singer’s funeral held in Atlanta, believing some of her daughter’s happiest days were spent here. But in the end, the singer was memorialized in her hometown church and will be entombed next to her father, John Russell Houston, at Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, N.J.
Houston’s years in Atlanta were fairly visible as she and Brown frequented restaurants and clubs.
“When she first started coming to the hotel, probably around 1992 or 1993, she was so beautiful,” said Martha Jo Katz, who served as director of social events for the Swissotel in Buckhead (now the Westin) from 1991 to 2004. “I can remember her telling me how much she loved Atlanta. It was so green. People were nice and friendly here. She liked being in Atlanta. When I first met her she was fairly quiet and reserved. She was very cordial.”
However, the Atlanta-filmed 2005 reality series, “Being Bobby Brown,” often showcased the contentious relationship between her and her husband – who left Houston’s funeral shortly after it started -- and spawned numerous late-night parodies and catchphrases.
The singer also told Oprah Winfrey in 2009 that the breaking point in her marriage came after Brown spit on her during a birthday party Houston arranged for him at a Buckhead nightclub.
But Saturday’s ceremony rightfully focused on Houston’s accomplishments as a global pop phenomenon and respected actress. Some of her Atlanta friends who couldn’t be there, such as Cee Lo Green, sent messages via Twitter.
“My condolences and apologies to the Houston family…I’m there in spirit and celebration for her life,” Green tweeted.
Inside the church, while eulogizing Houston, Marvin Winans acknowledged Senior Pastor Michael McQueen from St. James United Methodist Church in Alpharetta, noting that McQueen was, "the last minister she heard before her passing."
Earlier in the memorial, Houston’s mentor Clive Davis, who discovered the singer in 1983 and called her “an eternally loyal friend,” spoke of her uniqueness.
“You wait for a voice like that for a lifetime. You wait for a face like that, a smile like that, for a lifetime,” Davis said.
One of the funeral’s most endearing “expressions” came from Kevin Costner, Houston’s co-star in “The Bodyguard,” who tearfully shared stories of their time on the set and the commonalities they shared – particularly, growing up in the Baptist church.
But Costner also touched on Houston’s vulnerabilities and gave insight into her fragile mindset.
Costner said during the filming of the 1992 movie, Houston often wondered, “Was I good enough? Am I pretty enough? Will they like me?” It was, he continued, “the burden that made her great and the part that caused her to stumble in the end. Whitney, if you could hear me now I would tell you, you weren’t just good enough, you were great.”
Staff writers Jennifer Brett and Rodney Ho contributed to this report.
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