If you had to pinpoint the moment things began to go wrong for Whitney Houston, it was around the same time everything was going right.

In 1992, she had already sold nearly 50 million albums and was about to sell 44 million more with The Bodyguard soundtrack.

There was her children’s charity, her support of Nelson Mandela and a world tour. 

But she married Bobby Brown, a guy who came with a lot of very heavy baggage. Together, they became tabloid gold.

By 2000, her erratic behaviour, increasingly embarrassing live performances and a shocking deterioration in her physical appearance turned her into a punchline for morbid jokes.

There were stories alleging cocaine and crack abuse. There were no-shows at important events. 

Word spread that working with her was impossible. 

Even non-insiders saw that she was messed up and getting more messed up by the month.

As early as 2001, MTV began assembling video for an obit for when the inevitable happened.

Lately, though, things seemed to be getting much, much better with even a possible shot at being a judge on X-Factor.

It’s too early to call this a junkie’s death, although that might turn out to be the case.

Perhaps it was death by misadventure. Or it could be some kind of cardiac failure resulting from years of drug abuse. 

After all, isn’t this the woman that was once quoted as saying “Crack is whack”?

But whatever the story, it’s a sad, sad way to go for a woman with one of the greatest voices of the last couple of generations.