‘I was Whitney Houston’s bodyguard in real life’

Whitney Houston may have been one of the most acclaimed singers of her generation, but David Roberts was not at all impressed when he was asked to be her bodyguard.

“I said ‘Whitney Houston, who’s that?’,” the former police sergeant turned close security officer recalled.

He spent six years guarding the late superstar as he toured the world and believes he was the inspiration for the 1992 film The Bodyguard, starring Houston and Kevin Costner.

“It was eye-opening, bearing in mind I’m from a farming community in North Wales, at the tip of the Llyn Peninsula.

“And here I am traveling the world with arguably one of the most famous people in the world, so it was quite an interesting experience,” the 72-year-old said, speaking from his home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Twenty-five years later he has written a book about his time with Star Who Died in 2012 at the age of 48,

David joined the RAF Police in 1968 and served in Northern Ireland before joining the North Wales Police in 1972.

He later transferred to the Met Police and ended his service in 1988 as a sergeant providing security to visiting dignitaries and heads of state.

They first met after Houston moved to Britain in 1988 while working for the US Embassy in London.

He recalled meeting a “most sophisticated, educated, intelligent, shy young woman”.

“I was extremely impressed,” he said.

“Her beauty was excellent even after the long flight from New York to London.”

Before the meeting his daughter had inspired him to accelerate his career and he had gone out and bought some of her music.

“He clearly had the voice of an angel,” he said.

He and Whitney were “famously matched” from the beginning.

The initial job was for three months but he was later asked to become director of security for their Far East tour.

“I can’t imagine it would be easy to look after such a high-profile personality with so many demands,” he said.

She said she spent most of her time in the hotel room on the phone to her then-boyfriend, comedian Eddie Murphy,

David said, “He’s as funny off stage as he is on stage, a great guy, I love him.”

She later had a tumultuous relationship with singer Bobby Brown, whom she married in 1992.

They remained married for 15 years.

“It’s remarkable to me that it lasted as long as it did,” David said.

“Literally, everyone involved in security there on the day of the wedding said, ‘Okay guys, we’ll be back here next year for the divorce party – we really didn’t think it would last and yet it proved to us. Everyone is wrong.”

Talking about his relationship with the megastar, he said that he knew him to such an extent that there was very little need for conversation when we were out in public.

“I would look at her and know what she was thinking and what she wanted or if we were in a crowd or I would feel a tug on the back of my jacket telling us we had to go.”

“There’s always that level of coordination between the defender and the receiver,” he said.

He would check into Houston’s hotels using the name Rachel Marron – the name of the character Houston played in The Bodyguard.

But he insisted that not everything in the film was true to life.

A romance developed between Costner and Houston’s characters in the film, but he insisted that he was more like a “kind uncle” to the star.

When asked if he would have died for her he spoke candidly.

“Of course,” he said.

“If I did my homework wrong, if I got my hazard assessment or risk management or preparation wrong, then yes, I would have paid for it, yes.”

And there was a lot of risk in making the assessment.

During the Far East tour he said there were about 50 fans who were considered a potential threat.

“The passionate fans were not just happy to see him, not just happy to be in his presence, they wanted a piece of him and that’s when it becomes a little difficult from my perspective,” he said.

“We had a guy who wrote all kinds of mentally disturbed comments on toilet paper.

“There was a guy in Australia who sent his dirty underwear and socks.”

He said that the person had written that he was going to attend his show in Sydney.

“He gave us his seat number and advised that when she sang Greatest Love of All again he would come on stage and ‘take her to meet her mother in heaven.’

He was surrounded by secret officers but the concert went off without any problems.

“He didn’t move, he didn’t show any signs of emotion at all,” David said.

“He finished the song, he stood up, he walked out, we never heard from him after that.”

This insight into the world of the mega-famous made David question why so many young people pursue stardom.

He said, “It was clear to me from the beginning that that level of fame was a very expensive price to pay.”

She said that she could only have any kind of normal life when she was with friends and family or in a hotel room “otherwise, nothing was normal”.

He said the years he spent following Houston around the world also cost him.

When asked whether it had cost him his personal relationships, he said: “You’d have to ask one of my three wives, I’m not entirely sure.”

The job ended suddenly in 1995.

He said they had been together for the past nine months and that he had witnessed Houston’s “slow but visible decline.”

He said he never saw drug paraphernalia but often saw the star in emotional distress.

“There was a problem that had to be solved by the people who looked after him, not only the family and friends, but also the executives who were making millions by exploiting him,” he said.

“But the general consensus at the time was that Houston couldn’t possibly go to rehab because it would be damaging to her reputation and career.”

He said that he has expressed concern.

He recalled, “I was told ‘Miss Houston has decided that she will no longer travel internationally, so she doesn’t need someone with your expertise, but if she ever decides to travel again, If you do, we will call you.”

“So that was the end of that.

“That was technically my swan song, that was the pill I took for him.”

Houston died in her room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in 2012 at the age of 48. accidental drowning Due to the effects of cocaine use and heart disease.

“It hurt. It was horrible,” David said.

“You get over the initial shock and then the anger takes over because this shouldn’t have happened.”

Then in 2015, Houston and Bobby Christina Brown, the only daughter of R&B singer Bobby Brown, was found unconscious in the bathtub of their home in Georgia and died six months later,

David remembered Houston being carried out of the living room with Bobby in her arms, and as she grew older, she was seen running around playing games.

David said, “The only consolation you’ll get from the whole matter is to believe that she (Houston), her father, her mother and her daughter have gotten to a place that no one can hurt them anymore.”

She said she wrote her book Whitney: The Memoir of Her Bodyguard to vent the anger she felt after Houston’s death.

“The entertainment industry is a beast. It has demands that are unrealistic. You take a 20-year-old young girl and you make them so famous, there are such demands, you have to make 10 albums in the next five years – but normal life. Where? You don’t have time for this,” he said.

“You are part of our money making machine and that was that”.