The late singer's longtime friend is opening up about the music icon's history of drug abuse.
Robyn Crawford, the late Whitney Houston's longtime friend, is opening up about the legendary singer's history of drug abuse.
Crawford sat down with NBC News’ Craig Melvin for a special edition of Dateline ahead of the release of her new memoir, A Song For You: My Life With Whitney Houston, and in a preview, says Houston had a problem with cocaine even in the early days of her career.
"I would remind Whitney that, now you know, we said, doing coke couldn’t go where we’re going, and we’re already there," Crawford says. "So, we shouldn't be doing it. And I noticed that she would go ahead and do it. She was having difficulty stopping."
Crawford says the public perception that Houston's ex-husband, Bobby Brown, introduced her to drugs is false.
"She wasn’t doing it regularly, but she would do it sometimes and sometimes might overdo it," Crawford says. "But you know, Bobby, he didn't introduce her to cocaine, no."
Dateline's "A Song for Whitney" episode airs Saturday, Nov. 9 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.
Houston was found dead in a hotel room bathtub at the Beverly Hilton on Feb. 11, 2012. According to the coroner report, her cause of death was drowning as well as the effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use. She was 48 years old.
In June 2016, Brown sat down with Robin Roberts for an episode of 20/20 and was candid about his and Houston's drug use. Brown said their problem with drugs was at its height during "the last few years of our marriage," which ended in 2007 after 14 years.
"It was terrible," he said. "Both of us, you know, trying to be clean, or one of us trying to be clean and the other one don't wanna be clean. It's a big struggle."
According to Brown, the marriage crumbled because of Houston's refusal to get sober and stop using drugs.
"She just wasn't ready to go that direction," Brown said.
Crawford's memoir will be released on Nov. 12, and in another preview from her interview with Melvin, she says she and Houston were involved romantically.
"Our friendship was a deep friendship," she said. "In the early part of that friendship, it was physical. It was during that first summer that we met. That was the first time that our lips touched."
"It wasn't anything planned, it just happened, and it felt wonderful," she continued. "And then, not long after that, we spent the night together. That evening was the night that we touched and that just brought us closer."
ET recently spoke to songwriter Diane Warren -- who wrote numerous songs for Houston -- at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation's Patron of the Artists Awards, and she shared how she felt about the upcoming release Crawford's new memoir.
"Robyn loved Whitney and... from what I knew of the two of them, it's sad that Whitney could not live her truth," Warren said. "It's heartbreaking."
"I think personally -- I mean, not that I know anything -- but I think if Robyn would have been there, I think Whitney would still be around," she continued. "She really cared about her."
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