Didn't We Almost Have It All: In Defense of Whitney Houston
Gerrick Kennedy
Abrams Books
On February 11, 2012, Whitney Houston was found submerged in the bathtub of her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Kennedy deftly peels back the layers of Whitney’s complex story to get to the truth at the core of what drove her, what inspired her, and what haunted her. He focuses on the key elements that informed her life—her family; the two romantic relationships that shaped the entirety of her adult life; her fraught relationship to her own Blackness and the Black community; her drug and alcohol addiction; and, finally, the shame that she carried in her heart, which informed every facet of her life. Didn’t We Almost Have It All contextualizes Houston's struggles against the backdrop of tabloid culture, audience consumption, mental health stigmas, and racial divisions in America. It explores exactly how and why we lost a beloved icon far too soon.