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Houston funeral to be streamed online, Franklin pays tribute
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 16 February 2012
With no public memorial event planned for anytime soon, it’s been announced that Whitney Houston’s funeral service will be televised, meaning that fans will be able to mourn with the singer’s friends and family, albeit from afar.
It was announced earlier this week that the funeral service for the late pop star, due to take place this Saturday a week after her premature death, would be a private occasion to be held at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, where a young Houston first sang in public. However, yesterday representatives for the Houston family said that the event would now be made available to TV networks and streamed on the internet at livestream.com/aplive, possibly amid fears that fans looking to mourn, and with no official public memorial to attend, would flock to the Newark church.
About 1500 people will attend the funeral service in person, including various singers and music industry execs, while it’s thought Aretha Franklin will sing and gospel singer and pastor Marvin Winans will deliver the eulogy. There have been media reports that Bobby Brown has been asked to stay away from the service, with some blaming Houston’s ex-husband for the drug problems that dogged the latter part of her life, though said reports are almost certainly not true, because even if some of the singer’s family do resent Brown, they are unlikely to stop him from supporting the couple’s daughter on such a traumatic day.
Franklin, who was Houston’s godmother of course, has written a tribute to the late singer for People magazine in which she urges people to “remember the hits” and “forget the misses”. Recalling the first time Houston’s mother brought Whitney to a studio where Franklin was recording, the queen of soul writes: “I thought ‘what a cute, darling little red-headed girl!’ From then on, I watched her growth and development as an artist. It became apparent that she was the signalling of a younger generation coming in and a role model for many young vocal aspirants – a rose who came into full bloom. It wasn’t just the hits: Whitney knew how to be a star, and she was one of the brightest stars in the universe”.
Noting the personal problems that haunted Houston’s later life, Franklin said that her goddaughter’s worldwide fame was “perhaps too much, too soon”, while adding: “Let us all applaud and remember Whitney for the beautiful, giving and caring young lady and talented artist she was, the great music and performances. Remember the hits. Forget the misses. A true superstar has gone on, flown away on the wings of love”.
