Robyn Crawford’s A Song For You: My Life With Whitney Houston — A Book Review

by Michael P Coleman

In the introduction to Robyn Crawford’s sometimes revelatory, sometimes heartbreaking, and sometimes head-scratching memoir A Song For You: My Life With Whitney Houston, she writes, of her friendship with the superstar:

“Ours is a story of loyalty and trust.”

Upon my initial dive into the book, I doubted that. I think it’s easy for one to speak of their love and affection for someone who has passed away.

But after reading the book, and talking with two longtime friends of Crawford’s and Houston’s, gospel singer BeBe Winans and producer Narada Michael Walden, I’m convinced that the couple’s love for and friendship with each other was genuine and profound.

But I also think that, after reading A Song For You, both “loyalty” and “trust” ebbed and flowed between Crawford and Houston over the years. If you’re a fan of Houston’s, the book is more than worth a read.

Houston and Crawford allegedly began a two-year romantic relationship soon after they met. In hindsight, their coupling was one of the worst kept secrets in the entertainment business. Rumors of their sexual relationship dogged the pair for years, after Houston’s career took off with her eponymous debut album in 1985. Even Houston’s ex husband Bobby Brown wrote about his wife’s history with Crawford, in his 2016 memoir, Every Little Step.

So I don’t question the relationship having existed. But I would love to question the loyalty and, specifically, the trust. If those really were the foundations of the relationship and Crawford decided to abide by Houston’s request that they keep it a secret, and if she loved Houston as she says she did — and does — how could she have broken that promise, even after Houston’s 2014 death, by writing this book?

For the answer to that question, we’ll have to have a little patience. Crawford declined my request to speak with her about the book.

Click here to read MPC’s full review of the new book, including quotes from BeBe Winans and Narada Michael Walden about Crawford. Also, read Coleman’s take on a 16 year old Houston sleeping with a 19 year old Crawford. Love affair, or statutory rape?