Music producer Clive Davis, shared singer Whitney Houston was making progress overcoming her addiction days before her death.
Davis first signed the singer to a record deal when she was 20 years old and worked with her throughout her career.
In a exclusive conversation with Page Six, Davis shared that he was shocked when singer died in 2012. “I was with her 48 hours before her death,” he said, adding, “It never occurred to me” that she would die two days later.
Though she entered rehab multiple times throughout her adult life, Whitney struggled with addiction until it ultimately took her life.
“She was showing me what she had done in rehab,” the record producer, 90, explained. “How she had given up smoking, how she had cleared her throat of nicotine. And she was wanting to start going in the studio….I never would have thought 48 hours before her death, that she would pass, that there would be that horrendous, premature end to her life.
He added, “She was making a valiant attempt during that period to give up drugs and rehabilitate herself.”
The I Will Always Love You crooner was found unconscious in a Beverly Hilton suite, submerged in the bathtub on Feb. 11, 2012. Paramedics performed CPR but she was unresponsive and died at age 48.
Recalling the first time the Houston auditioned for him, Davis knew that she the kind of special that does not come by often. “I knew at that audition that this was a once-in-a-lifetime singer,” he shared.
The music industry executive also added that Whitney Houston’s newly-released biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, bare all that there is know about her.
“Whether it’s her sexuality, whether it’s how she reacted to any innuendo that she was not singing black enough, or whether it was the impact of drugs, or whether it was recording with me,” he said.