A few days after Whitney Houston’s death, some people are wondering, was Whitney exploited by…. Clive Davis? It seems to be avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás' opinion.
I don’t know much about her, but the long statement she posted on her facebook page is extremely opinionated. Beside praising the late singer, she is accusing Clive Davis of having push Houston too much and too fast:
‘Whitney … Whitney … was put back onstage before she was ready to perform – by the colossal pig Clive Davis – who continued his party in the same hotel where she died and where her body still lay. Heresy.’
‘Whitney should have been allowed to study for a minimum of two years with a voice therapist/teacher before even rehearsing, let alone performing, onstage. It is a gigantic jump to go from not performing to performing – and a much larger one to go from not performing and living a life without discipline, the leisure life, in particular, to performing.’
Those are serious accusations, it is one thing to condemn Davis’ decision to maintain the pre-Grammys party after Houston had died, as other celebrities did, but it is another to call him a ‘colossal pig’ and to basically accuse him to be responsible of her death by putting her on stage when she hasn’t recovered yet.
She even goes further:
‘What was she put onstage as? A lesson that ‘drugs kill’? ‘Hey wanna see a crack ho sing?’ Courtesy of Clive Davis.’
‘Wow, man, that will be some freaky shit, right?’ ‘You bet, man.’
Is she implying he wanted to parade her like a circus freak? And used her as a cash cow?
‘Great. Now Mr. Davis will be able to package her death in frills and sell it big time – even during the nadir of record sales. (Sony and iTunes have already begun selling the back catalogue at exceedingly high prices, hours after her death, possibly minutes). And Clive and Sony will say, "Even though we do not hope to even break even with this uncompromising tribute to Whitney Houston, we feel, personally, that it is her due, as the foremost singer ever on our labels, and as lovely girl she always was to us." Etc, etc, puke puke puke.’
She is totally right about this (Iman wrote about it a few days ago) which tells me this girl is speaking the truth. But she had more to say:
‘Mr. Davis thought nothing of keeping her up onstage while she received humiliating reviews and she represented DOPEFIEND LOSER of THE WAR ON DRUGS. He probably said, ‘Ignore those jealous fools, dear; the more you sing, the more you'll begin to really sing.’ Pure entertainment for the folks that know better.
And the press will make more correlations between death days and birthdays and dead dopefiend performers and pour more gasoline on her body. Another party where she was close by but unreachable.
I feel deep sorrow for Whitney. I feel no sorrow for anyone else other than her family and those who still loved her.
And a deep loathing for those who ran her into the ground. Sure, one was Bobby Brown, but he is a common idiot.
The bigger picture?
Think a minute.
DIAMANDA GALÁS’
Reading the comments following her long mordant letter, I can tell that a lot of people are missing the point, Diamanda is not blaming Davis for the bad decisions Houston took (like the drugs), she is accusing him to have exploited and cashed on the singer, who was turned into some kind of train-wreck voyeurism. I would like to learn more about this Clive Davis, is he really that cold tyrant-human-exploiter mogul she is describing? But at this point isn't every body cashing on Houston anyway?