♪ you can fool people. you can fool anybody any time of the day, but you can't fool yourself. at night when you go home, you got to be straight up with you, and know, you know, when the stuff is good and when the stuff is bad, you know, and deal with it. ♪ ♪ hey, everyone. i'm hill harper. welcome to "how it really happened." she was america's sweetheart, the girl next door, and our reigning pop princess. we called her "whitney," and she was known as "the voice." whitney houston's soaring fame and well-publicized demons were center stage for the entire world to see. tonight, we explore how this amazing performer

came to a heartbreaking end. fans were always pulling for whitney, and in early 2012, it looked like she was making a comeback -- new man, new music and a new movie. the film was a remake of "sparkle," and it marked a return to her roots, home to the church, back to the power and promise of gospel. sparkle, you can have a gift. it's how you use it. turner: "sparkle" is a cult classic, especially in the african-american community. be on the mark. can i get an "amen"? amen! amen! amen! ame! houston: being born and raised in the gospel community, it was not new to me to sing gospel or to sing with a choir. ♪ why should shadows ♪ ♪ shadows come? ♪ it is very natural to me -- in some ways, more natural than popular music -- because it's where i'm rooted. it's where my foundation is.

so it wasn't a new adventure. it was just coming back home. [ cheers and applause ] i remember "sparkle," and i remember the great press that came around "sparkle." whitney looked great, and they were showing clips, and everyone was saying, "oh, my gosh, she's back." turner: she was healthy and happy. was she? we don't know. she looked like she was trying. she looked like she was winning the battle at that point. lemon: so everyone thought that this "sparkle" movie was going to be great and that it was going to be whitney's comeback and finally [exhales sharply] right? she could exhale. and then came the grammys. hello. i'm a.j. hammer in new york, and this is a special edition of "showbiz tonight" -- "showbiz @ the grammys." whitney was there for grammy week. she had planned on making a comeback in the music business, but even before she boarded the plane to los angeles,

she had reservations. mun: and people are calling it a comeback. is that putting kind of pressure on you? are you feeling nervous about the whole thing? it's not a comeback for me. i've been here. i've just been here. i just took a break. i'll be honest and say i didn't celebrate the comeback as maybe a lot of people did. i felt like, "it's too soon." i felt like, "you know what? whitney is not ready yet." ♪ halperin: whitney was erratic in the hotel, to say the least. she was found hanging out. several media people spotted her at the bar, getting hammered. cooper: houston was seen skipping around a ballroom and doing handstands near the hotel pool. whitney was partying. she was happy. she was sober, maybe a little tipsy because she had some champagne. there were reports of her having drugs

delivered to her in the hotel. and then, yeah, she went into a gift shop. she saw a tabloid with a headline about her. she went ballistic. things are bad, and they're worse than they appeared. all i knew is, whatever is going on, it's far worse than they're letting us know. halperin: paramedics arrived. there was a lot of panic. they administered cpr. they were unable to resuscitate her. she was gone. every once in a while you have to report something that you thought would be the worst thing that could happen and it was going to happen and now it has. singer whitney houston, one of the greatest voices of our generation -- cnn has gotten confirmation from a representative -- has died. moret: you got the feeling that her body simply gave out. the real sadness is that she died alone

and she died in pain -- not physical, perhaps, but emotional, clearly. ♪ levy: circumstances were... bizarre and confusing. we are now getting some of these new details about the final days and the death of pop superstar whitney houston. we don't know, really, for sure exactly what killed her. she was found facedown in the bathtub -- facedown, very strange. baldwin: the singer was found facedown and was under water for as long as an hour. the most surprising new information was this -- the water in the hotel bathtub where houston drowned was very, very hot. i'm talking in excess of 93 degrees. halperin: i think that's the key point, was the water temperature at 93 degrees. it's highly suspicious, just the temperature of the water. there were two superficial abrasions to the left side of her forehead. there was a superficial abrasion to the left side

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the case is still pending. we're waiting for toxicology, and the investigation is ongoing. on saturday, the 11th, at approximately 3:55 p.m., whitney houston was pronounced dead at the beverly hilton hotel. velez-mitchell: i happened to be just 15 minutes from the beverly hilton, so i went over there and just stood around and started seeing people just pull up and get out of cars. behind me there are fans singing a medley

of whitney houston songs in tribute to her. ♪ they can't take away my dignity ♪ man: everyone! velez-mitchell: they were lighting candles and lighting their cigarette lighters. it was a very emotional scene to be there. ♪ it reminded me of the real whitney houston. it's almost like the postcards or stamps on your life, when you heard certain whitney songs, and you remember exactly where you were and exactly what you were doing. i remember the first time i heard "the greatest love of all." ♪ the greatest love ♪ turner: i was a young girl, and i -- this voice, and it was just absolutely so beautiful. ♪ to achieve ♪ it was a hallmark of pop in the '80s, and it was a hallmark of whitney at the start. you couldn't turn on any radio station and get away from it, and at a certain point -- for me, it was,

"i want to dance with somebody" -- you just say, like, "i give up. this is pretty great." ♪ oh, i want to dance with somebody ♪ "this person can sing." ♪ i want to feel the heat with somebody ♪ early on, both the music and the image are immaculate. you know, there's a lot of luxury, not just to the image, but to the sound of that music, a lot of aspiration, despite the fact that she might say, from time to time, "i'm a jersey girl." ♪ halperin: whitney grew up in new jersey, and she came from a family that was deeply embedded in show business. i think out of anyone, whitney houston definitely has a pedigree. you look at her mother, cissy. you look at her cousin, dionne warwick, both classic, iconic voices. halperin: her mother sang in the church. her cousin sang in the church, and young whitney was put in the church choir.

turner: whitney was grounded in the church family and in the church home, and so that's -- that's... who she was and where she came from. so when she was 11, she got up and sang a solo, "just a little talk with jesus," and people were just in awe. ♪ he'll send a light down from heaven ♪ ♪ if you let it shine ♪ i know that what i have has been god-given, and i know it's a blessing. has your mother told you how proud she is of you? oh, every day. when i said i wanted to be a singer and be in the business, she said, "do you really?" i said, "yeah, i think so." she said, "okay, this is it." it almost seems predestined that whitney houston is to go into the music business, to become a singer, and to become a star. woman: whitney houston, 21-year-old daughter of singer cissy houston and cousin of dionne warwick, is tuning up her club act at sweetwater's in new york city.

halperin: she used to perform at the sweetwater club, and that's when clive davis first really got his initiation into whitney's voice. moret: clive davis was a brilliant record man. he was mr. music. if he signed you -- and he signed whitney -- you were going to be big. you look for a great interpreter of song, and it's not easy to come by. there's only one of a generation. you hear all of these stories about how he really, really groomed her and prepared her for the industry and worked really closely because he saw -- he saw the potential. clive davis signs her and then molds her into this, you know, person, and she did the rest with her talent. [ applause ] velez-mitchell: whitney made her television debut on "the merv griffin show." halperin: merv griffin was the most influential person in television back in the day, with his talk show. he was like the oprah winfrey, and when young whitney went on his show

and sang the song "home," it just made waves. ♪ my world has gone and changed its face ♪ ♪ but i know ♪ ♪ i know where i'm going ♪ what i remember very vividly is the album cover where she has the white one-shoulder gown on and her hair is slicked back, and i remember that because she looked so glamorous. whitney houston's first album was "whitney houston," self-titled, huge smash hit, millions and millions of copies, wins a grammy. her second album, two years later, just called, "whitney." by then she just needed one name, whitney. that tells you how big she was. everybody loved whitney when she came out. do you remember the album cover? it was sex appeal but girl next door, appealing to black, white, and everyone in between, and the world loved her. woman: arriving straight from her smashing debut concert

at carnegie hall to a party at new york city's palladium, celebrating her success. hammer: so whitney is now on this wild ride, and, of course, as she became more and more famous, people became more and more interested in her personal life, particularly her relationship with robyn crawford. halperin: before whitney hit it big, she met robyn crawford, who had a very big impact in her life. robyn crawford became her personal assistant, and they were inseparable. there were constant rumors, perhaps, of them having an affair. we saw the allegations on the cover of every tabloid magazine for a very long time. i'm not gay, and i'm not lesbian. i'm a mother. i'm a wife. i'm a daughter. lesbian and gay, i am not -- two titles i can't claim. i'm sorry. i just can't, you know? who knows? but guess what -- who really cares? i don't really care if whitney houston was gay, straight, bisexual, whatever. i just cared that she could sing her ass off.

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♪ whitney houston! [ cheers and applause ] hammer: whitney houston was the belle of the annual ball, and at times, she seemed almost overcome with her good fortune. i don't know what to say. thank you. i love you. thank you. the '80s undeniably belonged to whitney houston, so imagine her shock when she gets booed at the 1989 soul train awards. the nominees for best r&b urban contemporary single by a female are... ♪ ohhhhh, oh, oh-oh-oh ♪ ..."where do broken hearts go," whitney houston. velez-mitchell: at the 1989 soul train awards, whitney houston was booed because some critics were saying she didn't sound black enough. she had given away her roots. it's horrible, and it's kind of funny. you go, "are they booing me?"

[ chuckles ] and they say, "yeah." you go, "oh, how nice." you know, "you're not black enough for them." you know? i don't know. "you're not r&b enough. you're very pop. the white audience have taken you away from them." whalum: to be rejected by one's family is the ultimate rejection, and you could say that black people, in a way, are her family, and so when they didn't receive her and accept her gift as belonging to this community, we all sensed the profound hurt that whitney dealt with. that wasn't the only thing that happened to whitney at that awards show. that's where she met bobby brown. ♪ it's the 1989 soul train awards, and bobby brown is very charismatic, and whitney houston notices that,

and she happens to be sitting, at one point, behind him and sort of flirts with him by punching him in the back of the head, you know, tapping him, and he looks at her like, "you better not do that again." now, she said that she was intrigued by that, a man who wasn't impressed with her, a man who didn't roll over because she was the whitney houston. moret: you know, if you look at her trajectory, you can chart her fall directly to her meeting and falling in love with bobby brown. she loved him. she actually loved him. what she liked about him was he was just bobby. he wasn't pretentious. she could just relax and just be herself. she didn't have to be a perfect, you know, beautiful queen, princess whitney with him. bobby brown was the bad boy. their princess was being tarnished. lemon: i did not like bobby brown. i liked his music, but i did not want him for my whitney. when bobby came on the scene, i can tell you categorically that we in the band... were incredulous.

for us, we saw him as a distraction. she definitely wanted to squash the rumors that she was a lesbian, and by getting married, that would silence the people who wanted to out her. i had the most beautiful wedding that i had ever been to, and i was married. [ chuckles ] i was in it. "and it was mine." and it was mine! ♪ 1992 was just a huge year for whitney houston because it's not only the year that she and bobby brown got married, '92 is also when "the bodyguard" came out. "the bodyguard" was probably the height of her career, especially with "i will always love you." ♪ and i ♪ ♪ will always ♪ ♪ love you ♪ and the scene in the end, where they run to each other and the airplane is going, it's like, you know, the -- it's like "casablanca," and you -- come on.

you have to cry on that movie. i remember the first day of shooting, i was so nervous. i was so nervous, you know? and -- i have to tell you -- because kevin was the best. it was groundbreaking in the sense that you had an african-american woman and white man. levy: why is "i will always love you" a number-one song for 14 weeks in a row? because it's on the soundtrack of a movie about a failed romance between a white guy and a black woman at a time of racial division in the united states, at a time when we can't all just get along. ♪ i hope... ♪ whalum: when i tell people, "i played the sax solo on that song" -- "what song?" "i will always love you" -- and they just take a deep breath, you know? and so, yeah, now it is a calling card, and i will say this -- whitney would always tease us. she would say, "okay, use my name if it'll help, but it ain't going to always help."

she rose to superstardom, and her music was heard in every corner of this world. velez-mitchell: i think there was a lot of pressure to be this icon and this diva and this super human, and... she was just a human. moret: she was at her peak, and she was about to jump off of a precipice, and nobody knew it. i remember hearing the drug rumors, and i remember, like everybody else, i didn't want them to be true. long before bobby brown arrived, whitney had dabbled with drugs. her own brother, the story goes, introduced her to drugs. whitney houston's brother michael admitted on "oprah" that he was the one who introduced whitney houston, his sister, to cocaine back in the '80s. winfrey: did you introduce her to drugs? i would say... yeah. it's painful. you know? i feel responsible for what -- i let it go so far, and it just got out of hand.

hammer: whitney and bobby getting together wasn't entirely good because they partied together, and the speculation was that they became really codependent. i don't sit here in judgment of bobby brown, saying, "you did this to whitney houston." whitney did to herself what she did, but i think the two of them together were combustible in a very harmful way to both of them. turner: there was a lot of whispering -- "what's wrong with whitney?" people around her said she was a ticking time bomb. (sfx: ping) (♪) ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ please don't go.. ♪ ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ please don't go ♪ ♪ don't goooooo! ♪ (♪)

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-let's go! -get in the pile! ugh, i'll deal with this tomorrow. you won't. it's ripe in here. my eyes are watering. i'm a busy man. look how crusty this is. shameful. ugh, it's just too much. not with this. tide. tide can tackle any pile. that a tackle pun? just clean the pile, ron. okay. this too. that was easy. when stains and odors pile up, it's got to be tide.

welcome back to "how it really happened." with the release of "the bodyguard," whitney nailed the high note of her career. she not only had a blockbuster movie, grossing more than $531 million worldwide, the film's soundtrack won two grammys, and the lead single, "i will always love you," became the best-selling song by a woman in music history, but whitney still had one driving and, so far, unrealized dream, a deep desire for a happy marriage and motherhood. was this the moment in life whitney would have it all?

♪ houston: well, i fell in love with a great man, and i thought, "mm. i think i'll have his baby." [ laughs ] lavar: whitney as a mother -- that was the number-one-thing in her life. she loved being bobbi kris' mother. she loved that baby with her whole heart, and as a mother, she wanted to protect her and give her the best that she could possibly do. houston: somehow motherhood, being a mother, period, you kind of stop living for yourself and you start living for your children. you know, everything that i do, everything that i think, everything that i say, bobbi kristina is on my mind when i do it. sylvester: do you ever get scared and say, "oh, i don't know if i can do this. maybe i'll screw it up"? mm-hmm. yep. yeah. every day. [ laughs ] almost every day. then i'll screw it up. [ laughs ] i think that whitney houston looked at her daughter, as all moms do of their kids, and say,

"that's my greatest achievement." and i think that for whitney houston, the ultimate failure for her would be to know that her daughter would follow her footsteps. for bobbi kristina to die in virtually the same way her mom died was the ultimate tragedy. ♪ whitney houston. man: alright, whitney! [ applause ] thank you. thank you. my favorite, favorite whitney houston moment was the american music awards. i think it's 1994. that is whitney houston at her finest. woman: when getting ready to come here, did you think that you'd be standing there with eight of those? um, no, i didn't think i'd be standing here with eight of them, but a few of them, i did. [ laughs ] i think after she became bigger than life, she became, in the same breath,

almost as michael jackson and madonna. then the receipts started pouring in, and all of a sudden, she had unlimited access to funds. ♪ the drug rumors really kicked in when the tabloids started showing cover stories of whitney out of control, around undesirables, and this really shocked the world because we had a squeaky-clean image of whitney houston up until that point. in terms of whitney's drug use, man, i would have to say, man, that i was a little sheltered. you know, i think my perspective on her was -- i was maybe in denial for a lot of years, and it was just so hard for me to accept, and yet, yeah, i knew it. ♪ moret: by "the preacher's wife," by her own admission,

she was doing drugs every day. she was already in a free fall. sydney: more details are emerging about whitney houston's absence from the oscars. the academy says that the decision to drop her from a musical segment was reached by the show's producers, musical directors burt bacharach and don was, and houston herself. lemon: a sign of not being able to perform is that you have been doing something that has kept you from performing, and i think that's where the realization came. whitney, oh, my goodness! hey, girl! hi! how y'all doing?! turner: i think we all suspected. nobody really wanted to talk about it. there was a lot of whispering -- "what's wrong with whitney?" when we saw that performance for the michael jackson 30th anniversary performance... ...i mean...wow. all you have to do is look at the picture. whalum: i remember seeing whitney on the michael jackson tribute in 2001

and just going, like, "that is just not the same person. it's just not the same person." when i walked in and i saw how thin she was, i was very, very concerned. i was afraid for her. and after the show, i took her in the bathroom, and i told her -- i was like, "whitney, look at you," and i lifted up her shirt, and i said, "look at you." i said, "whatever you're doing, you have to stop doing it, or you're going to die," and she said, "i know," and she just started crying. ♪ chung: trouble-laden diva whitney houston comes clean in an abc interview, admitting she used drugs, but says she now has the problem under control. that interview with diane sawyer was -- [ exhales sharply ] whitney, whitney, whitney. i couldn't take my eyes off of it, but i didn't want to watch it, at the same time. [ raspily ] you could hear it in her voice. "i make too much money to do crack."

first of all, let's get one thing straight. crack is cheap. i make too much money to ever smoke crack. let's get that straight, okay? we don't do crack. we don't do that. crack is wack. moore: "i don't have to lie to you. i don't do that stuff 'cause, you know, crack -- that's wack." now, i'm telling you... she's high. ♪ williams: whitney, whitney, whitney. i don't know if you ever remember hearing the wendy williams radio interview. whitney let wendy williams have it in a way i have never heard anybody on the radio. whitney became very irate when people would ask her about her drug use because she thought

they were trying to misdirect her talent and take away from her musical abilities. whitney houston had a completely alter ego that the world didn't know about till much later in her life. dr. pinsky: she needed to surrender. whitney houston needed to throw up her hands and listen to treatment professionals and go into treatment and stay there and not contemplate anything else except her recovery. many times she said to me, on more than one occasion, "you don't know what it's like being me. everybody expects so much from me."

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♪ hammer: whitney houston's stunning admission that she's getting treatment for drugs and alcohol is still sinking in. so, whitney went into rehab three times, and, each time, she didn't stick around all that long, instead choosing to leave and go into outpatient therapy. dr. pinsky: she probably negotiated a way to an outpatient program, which, as caretakers, we're often stuck doing because patients aren't -- we can't hold them against their will. she should have been in treatment for 6 months, period. lavar: i came to her house one day to do her hair, and... i couldn't find her, and i said to someone in the house, "where's whitney?" and they're like, "oh, she's in the pool house." and i walk in, and i was like, "what are you doing out here?" she just laid her head on my chest and just busted out crying, and i had no idea. i just held her. you perceived this torment in her, and i think it really all stems back to this sense that she wasn't good enough.

cooper: bobby brown is reportedly shopping around a reality show where tv cameras would keep track of every move brown and his wife, whitney houston, make. producers have a working title for the show -- "cops." man: i hear there's no holds barred here. is that true? as much -- as much as we wanted to do that yeah. what's the biggest surprise we might have? that we're normal -- just normal. moret: there was nothing normal about whitney houston and bobby brown in "being bobby brown." there was nothing normal about her life. hey, baby. i need to go back to -- i need -- i need you. ♪ unh ♪ ♪ go, go, go, go, go, ♪ ♪ go, go to get my, my, my glasses, glasses, glasses ♪ i'm hungry. i'm hungry. i need a vacation. it just represented, you know, like watching someone self-destruct, you know, on tv. it just was wrong in every way. it was a long union, but it was a very tumultuous one.

there was so many incidents of drug abuse, of erratic behavior, arrests. turner: when he was in jail and getting out and she ran to him when he was coming out and jumped on him, she looked disheveled. he looked disheveled. bye! excuse us. we got to go. it just looked like a codependent weirdness that was uncomfortable for us to watch. like, we literally were watching the train wreck in front of us. so then after the "being bobby brown" thing, she gets the divorce, and i'm like, "oh, my god, yes!" hammer: even more shocking celeb split news -- whitney houston says, "i want a divorce." lemon: but now they're divorced, and now she's going to be okay. she can get her image and her voice back, and america loves a comeback story. hammer: whitney houston -- the drug rumors, the divorce drama, and now word is the singer is making a comeback. houston: it's not a comeback for me. i've been here. i've just been here. i just took a break, you know, which sometimes you have to. i was shocked at her condition, her vocal condition.

she had no voice. but i went there because i was told, and it was true, that she wanted to make a return, a comeback, and it was sort of a hail mary pass, and then she needed to have her voice back, or else there was -- what else could she do? the problem with celebrity is that there aren't the usual consequences to the behavior, if they continue to go back to their work as the solution to their problems. they have people around them for whom they're making lots of money that want them back at work, and they never really get at the core issues. tonight, houston, we have a problem. there is big controversy over whitney's concert performance on this morning's "good morning america." [off-key] ♪ nothing to do ♪ ♪ but lift my head ♪ ♪ back up to you ♪ lemon: so, from that horrible "gma" performance -- and it was horrible. i'm sorry. she couldn't even sing -- she started touring around the world. halperin: she needed much more help than she got. she needed better people around her.

moore: i remember clive coming to me, and he said, "sam... what do i do? what can i do?" [ sighs ] i said, "clive, she needs help." "i'll help. i'll do everything i can." his intentions were wonderful, but, see, when you got somebody that's... higher, she's put higher than the person that's trying to help you, he can't do anything because they are going to close him out. whitney's inner circle was not any place that we ever got, those of us who played with her. there was a wall that was very meticulously built by the folks who really were inside, and that was to keep certain people out and to keep certain people in. halperin: there was financial interests for the people around her,

and they didn't want to rebel against her in fear that they might be cut out. many times, she said to me on more than one occasion, "you don't know what it's like being me. having this -- i mean, i feel i'm stressed out all the time. everybody expects so much from me, and i'm trying, but it's very, very, very difficult." i was not on board for the comeback. i felt like the forces -- and i'm not mentioning any names -- but i felt like the forces who were pulling for that were pulling for that and not pulling for whitney. it's getting worse. it's a progressive disease, and things are bad. why do dermatologists choose dove? the dove beauty bar, is gentle. it not only cleans, it hydrates my skin. as a dermatologist, i want what's best for our skin. with 1/4 moisturizing cream, dove is the #1 bar dermatologists use at home.

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♪ halperin: whitney gets to l.a. for the clive davis grammy party, gets there a few days before. what the world saw was whitney, who's supposed to be rehabilitated, launching a comeback, relaunching her career,

at the bar, getting completely trashed and complaining that her drinks are being watered down. people were shocked. it's getting worse. it's a progressive disease, and things are bad. all i knew is, whatever is going on, it's far worse than they're letting us know. ♪ halperin: then there was the e! interview, and this was maybe the icing on the cake. the door was open. i saw whitney walk in. i saw her say, "hey, clive." you know, she -- i mean, she was boisterous, but she was excited to see clive, and she was excited to see, you know, brandy and monica. moret: whitney was trying to be playful and interrupt, but it was doing it in a way that made people think she was high. come say hi to your godfather. woman: you sure you're okay? hi. come say hi to your goddad. it wasn't until i was close to her where i could smell alcohol. i could smell cigarettes. but it became very clear that, obviously, she was not completely 100% herself. man: say it, whitney! woman: whoo! whitney! the next night, i was going to a party in hollywood

for kelly price, and it was a really chaotic scene, and inside, you could hear, you know, the screams for whitney, and it's like, "oh, whitney showed up?" ms. whitney houston, ladies and gentlemen! halperin: she does a duet with kelly price, a couple of gospel songs, doesn't have the chops at all, but people are still happy she's there. moret: there was a woman who was on "the x factor." i think she was a singer on "the x factor," who whitney thought was making a move on her guy, and she got into it with her, and when she left tru nightclub, oh, gosh, she had scratches on her face. she had blood on her legs, you know, disheveled. fast-forward... goes back to her hotel room. she's caught reading the bible, talking about how she needs to be loved, and then the next day,

seen drinking... at the bar. lemon: i remember... i was sitting on the anchor desk, and i finished a show, and i walked downstairs. i was in atlanta. and they said, "we need you to go back upstairs." and i said, "why?" halperin: and then later on, 3:30, her personal assistant, mary jones... knocks. no -- unresponsive, no answer. and they said, "we're getting word that whitney houston died." i said, "what?!" halperin: goes in and finds whitney in a hot-water bath. the bath was very hot. so i run -- i didn't even take the elevator. i ran back up the two flights of stairs. there was a lot of panic. they administered cpr. paramedics arrived. they were unable to resuscitate her. it was too late. whitney houston was dead.

♪ announcer: this is cnn breaking news. you know, every once in a while you have to report something that you thought would be the worst thing that could happen and it was going to happen and now it has. "whitney just died." so i was definitely not surprised... but... hurt. the autopsy shows very clearly hard-core drug addict. make no mistake about this. this is a hard-core drug addict. halperin: the question that has to be raised is why whitney was left alone for such a long period. dr. pinsky: we know that she was taking a lot of cocaine, xanax, flexeril...

how did the drugs appear in that room? ...medications that don't belong together and are highly sedating. she may have just fallen asleep, slipped into the tub, and stopped breathing. that's a possibility. how is it possible that whitney was even able to do drugs when these people were in contact with whitney, coming in and out of the room? she also had, again, high levels of cocaine, but also had cocaethylene in her system, which is a by-product of cocaine and alcohol. halperin: the police found the mixture of drugs. they found numerous prescription medication. they found the spoon with powder on it. dr. pinsky: she may have had a cardiac rhythm disturbance from the cocaine and sudden death. so we don't know, really, for sure, exactly what killed her. we know for sure it's a substance death. i really believe this young lady wanted... help. she was dealing with too much hurt and too much pain,

pain that i knew about, pain that -- pains that people that loved her knew about. even now, i feel... that sort of... regret, you know? i think each person in a situation like that takes it on themselves to, like, "what could i have done?" i think probably nothing, but when i heard, i just sat there. i said, "well... so we lost that battle." ♪ lavar: i think that people need to remember she's a human being. she's a mother. she's a daughter. she was a wife. she was a sister. that's what they need to really, really, really focus on and not just her struggle. whitney's going to be remembered as one of the greatest singers

in american musical history, a deeply flawed person and performer but a deeply human one, as well. whitney houston includes all of it, the good and the bad. i thought she was great, despite all of her demons. i love you. thank you. lemon: i wish she could have been around longer and lasted longer. houston: i'm humbled, actually, that the industry recognizes what you do. it's the best feeling in the world to be recognized by your peers and people that love you. really, it is the best feeling, but i'm not done yet, believe me. how will whitney houston be remembered? whitney's unforgettable voice will surely be her greatest legacy. after her death, 9 of her 10 albums returned to the top of the charts, with "whitney: the greatest hits" peaking at number 2 on the billboard 200

and 886,000 copies sold. as a tribute to whitney houston, clive davis produced a documentary titled "the soundtrack of our lives," and, finally, whitney's estate authorized a documentary about the legendary singer directed by oscar winner kevin macdonald. whitney, we will always love you. thanks for watching. good night. ♪ ♪ a lot of people misunderstand me. it's because they don't know me. i mean, i guess that's true.