Was Whitney Houston gay? It’s a question that’s long lingered in the late, great pop star’s legacy.
For years, rumors had swirled over Houston’s relationship with longtime BFF-turned assistant, Robyn Crawford, a queer woman who opened up about their intimate connection in her 2019 memoir, Song For You.
And while having a definitive label for Houston’s sexuality feels inconsequential to appreciating her once-in-a-generation talent, the topic has stoked plenty of speculation, and it’s been fascinating to see how works about Houston’s life do—or don’t—choose to address it.
Related: Robyn Crawford, girlfriend of Whitney Houston, opens up about their love: “We were not ashamed.”
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Look no further than the 2015 Lifetime biopic, Whitney, directed by Angela Bassett. Crawford does, indeed, appear in the film, but no mention is made of her relationship with Houston, only gliding over the details of their friendship and rather incidentally mentioning that they lived together before the singer’s marriage to Bobby Brown.
On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the drama Beauty, written by Lena Waithe, which quietly dropped on Netflix earlier this summer. Though the characters in the film are presented as fictional, it’s a very thinly veiled story about the early days of Houston’s fame, her religious family, and how both came into conflict with her queer relationship.
And now, all eyes are on the upcoming I Wanna Dance With Somebody, a big blockbuster biopic about Houston in the same vein as the Oscar-winning Bohemian Rhapsody. Not coincidentally, the films share a writer: Anthony McCarten.
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Directed by Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou, Harriet), the biopic features rising English actress Naomi Ackie as Houston, taking a wide-lens look at the life and career of the pop star. From the look of the new trailer, all the major moments are there—her first breakthrough, her unforgettable performance of the National Anthem, her marriage to Bobby Brown—letting us into her personal struggles as she rose to global superstardom.
But there’s a fleeting scene that really caught our attention: It shows Houston, at home, dancing side-by-side with Robyn (Black Lightning‘s Nafessa Williams), and then the two dancing together, looking right into one another’s eyes. “You two have been spending a lot of time together,” Houston’s father (The Wire‘s Clarke Peters) tells her. “It’s damaging the brand!”
Wait, does that mean I Wanna Dance With Somebody is going to address Houston’s queerness, and contend with her relationship to Robyn in a real way? It’s admittedly hard to say for sure, especially because that line about “damaging the brand” plays over footage of Houston’s marriage to Brown (played in the film by Moonlight‘s Ashton Sanders).
And we’ll admit that the Bohemian Rhapsody connection does give us some pause, since that Freddie Mercury biopic—one of music’s biggest queer stars ever—somehow managed to downplay his sexuality.
Still, seeing Houston and Crawford dancing had our hearts aflutter, and we’ll be eager to find out how I Wanna Dance With Somebody represents their very meaningful connection. Yes, the story of Houston’s life is about so much more than her sexuality, but we’re hopeful for a mainstream depiction of her story that doesn’t push it aside completely.
I Wanna Dance With Somebody—which also stars Stanley Tucci and Tamara Tunie—opens nationwide on December 23. You can watch its second official trailer below:
Kangol2
I do worry this biopic (blecch to that genre) is going to downplay Whitney’s lesbianism/queerness, which was evident to anyone who saw her early on in her career or has seen clips (cf. her appearance on Byron Allen’s show), in favor of appealing to the widest (i.e., including homophobes) audience. They shouldn’t blanch out the reality of who she was, because having to live that double life added incalculable tension to how she moved through the world and depth to her performances. Her voice was an exceptional gift to the world!