It was widely speculated in the 1980s that Whitney, who died in 2012, and Robyn were romantically involved behind closed doors. While Whitney never confirmed the rumours and went on to marry Bobby Brown, Robyn maintained a wall of silence throughout the years. However, she’s now releasing a memoir detailing their romantic relationship and admits it was ‘physical’.
In A Song For You: My Life With Whitney Houston Robyn states: ‘I’d come to the point where I felt the need to stand up for our friendship. And I felt an urgency to stand up and share the woman behind the incredible talent.’
“We wanted to be together,” says Crawford, “and that meant just us.”
Whitney ended the physical part of their relationship early on, soon after she signed a record deal with Clive Davis at Arista.
The singer broke the news by giving Crawford a gift of a slate blue Bible one day in 1982. “She said we shouldn’t be physical anymore,” writes Crawford, “because it would make our journey even more difficult.”
“She said if people find out about us, they would use this against us,” says Crawford, “and back in the ’80s that’s how it felt.” And so, she says, “I kept it safe. I found comfort in my silence.” Robyn now lives with her partner, Lisa Hintlemann, with whom she shares two adopted children.
‘She was more interested in Eddie Murphy [than Bobby Brown], but he was elusive,’ Robyn writes in the book which is being excerpted by People. Recalling a particular incident, Robyn said: ‘One day when Eddie was supposed to come for dinner, I caught a glimpse of Whitney. She was wearing a black dress and low-heeled slingbacks. For a moment, I thought “Boy, I wish she was doing that for me”.
Eddie had a realisation on the day Whitney was set to marry Bobby and allegedly begged her in a phone call not to go ahead with the wedding. ‘[That day] Eddie Murphy called to say she was making a mistake but she pressed ahead,’ Robyn writes.
