Whitney Houston, Mega-success, and Youth
Seems like we’ve been here before … many, many times. Whitney Houston’s tragic death is the latest in a long string of drug- and alcohol-related celebrity deaths, going back to Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin in 1970, Jim Morrison in 1971, Elvis in 1977, Andy Gibb and John Belushi in the eighties, and, of course, Michael Jackson in 2009. And these are just a few of the names that come quickly to mind.
When a show-business icon dies prematurely, we tend to focus on his/her death rather than the life that led to that death. In the case of Whitney Houston, her travails were in the news so much over the years that even I — not a frequent showbiz reader — was aware of them. Anyone who watched the evening news couldn’t help but know about her bouts with drugs and alcohol, and, perhaps even worse, her fifteen-year marriage to a man who physically abused her.
Whitney Houston was super talented, attractive, and had a warm and lovable demeanor that made her a darling of music fans everywhere. And yet, like so many other superstars who preceded her in early death, she lived a life of pain that everyday folks would have difficulty relating to.
Which raises the question, if you could have all the talent, fame, money, and adulation that an Elvis Presley, a Michael Jackson, or a Whitney Houston had, but had to endure all the loneliness and misery they did, would you take the devil up on such an offer? Knowing what I know about human nature, I believe most people would. It’s a rare individual who can resist the allure of fame and fortune.
Of course, each person believes, in responding to such a hypothetical question, that he would have the self-discipline and good sense to avoid drugs, alcohol, and irresponsible behavior, but that’s easy to say when it’s so far removed from one’s real life. That’s because the average person cannot relate to the one ingredient that almost all of these sad souls have had in common: mega-success at a very young age.
It’s not the mega-success that’s the problem. It’s the young age. Immaturity catalyzes mega-success into a living hell. It’s hard to mature when your agent, your entourage, your fans, the media, and your bank account are all telling you that you’re great just the way you are. Not many people reach a meaningful level of maturity in their early twenties, let alone at a younger age.
In The Bridge Across Forever, Richard Bach sums up the problem poetically when he warns, “To be handed a lot of money is to be handed a glass sword, blade-first. Best handle it very carefully, sir, very slowly while you puzzle what it’s for.“
With the advantage of hindsight, I would add fame and adulation to Bach’s quote, because it’s the mixing of these two ingredients with money that creates a mind-set incapable of thinking about the things normal people are focused on day in and day out.
Imagine being in your twenties and not having to give a passing thought to paying bills, saving up for a vacation, or putting money away for a rainy day. It’s not a normal way of life, which is why, I believe, young superstars always seem to be searching for something more than fame, fortune, and the adulation of their entourages and fans.
Liz Taylor and Michael Jackson both pointed to loneliness as the number-one demon — a loneliness that is unique to superstars who, ironically, are surrounded by enablers and adoring fans. But having lots of people around does not, of and by itself, quell loneliness.
Chances are that, at one time or another, you’ve experienced a feeling of loneliness even when in a large crowd. Thoreau stated a corollary of sorts to this phenomenon when he said, “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” So perhaps now, Whitney, you’ve found the one companion that you needed all along.
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Copyright © 2012 Robert Ringer
ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.
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No, it’s not the mega-success that’s the problem, but it’s not the young age either – pain is the one ingredient all these sad souls had in common. A tormented soul is a tormented soul and no amount of talent, adulation or money will heal it. And pain is not unknown to everyday folks; a large percentage of the population are dulling their pain with something – prescription drugs, illegal drugs, alcohol, food, TV, gambling, sex, adrenaline, etc. For every tragic, premature celebrity death there are tens, probably hundreds of thousands of equally tragic and premature deaths that go unreported. Yes, Whitney Houston’s death is sad, but not any more so than the suicide of my less-talented 8th grade classmate.
Most individuals who are addicts—think Elvis who consumed two envelopes of prescription drugs per day— know full well that they are addicts, yet they make the choice. Rush Limbaugh made the choice when he turned himself into a pill poppa (sic) and swallowed up to 100 synthetic heroin tablets per day. Ol’ Rush-Bo had to be put into a medically induced coma in order to safely discontinue his high dosage of Oxycontin; Who knows what he’s up to now? –More Viagra and third-world sex vacations, I suppose. The truth is that the GOP, Hollywood and every demographic in between are full of pill poppas.. Prescription drugs are at epidemic levels.
I will chalk up Whitney as another victim of her own self-destructiveness. She lived a shallow life punctuated with some great artistic works. RIP.
Many amerikans are taught that the artificial forbidden fruit (a drug) is necessary for a party or to just feel good. Add to that fact that many crave “a good high” to begin with, and then what have you got? A nation of pill poppas, that’s what.
My kitchen-table advice is look to individuals like Jack Lalanne as role models. If you do, you’ll live a longer and happier life, unless, of course, one of the pill poppas slam into you and your family when they are high and behind the wheel. Which is precisely what happened to a Marine friend of mine. A pill poppa caused him to spend two months in a coma. And when he woke up he was told both of his sons and wife died in the car “accident.”
The long list of celebrity deaths culminating in Whitney Houston’s, begs the question.
Is a pre-disposition to substance abuse and other self-destructive behaviour a pre-requisite to fame and success as a performing artist? Is this character trait the dark side of those necessary to achieve success in this field?
Or is it as your article suggests, that success at an early age is just too much for the performer to handle?
I suspect that it may be a combination of both.
I like reading about new things that I hadn’t thought of before. You’re musings about the difficulties of Youth, Fame, and Fortune made pretty good sense, Robert. Thanks!
< That’s because the average person cannot relate to the one ingredient that almost all of these sad souls have had in common: mega-success at a very young age.
this is an easy correlation to confuse with causation, but ease is probably a tell, and is the way to bet.
think of the horatio alger error: horatios are the heard of; the numerically greater also-rans are unseen (and unsold…or, purposely not included in the ingredients list as the leavening agents they are….).
a preexisting emotional hole drives many in show biz. but emotional holes are only poorly understood, too, and psyche/emotion are still convenient indictments for physiological unknowns.
think about the prevalence of insomnia, for example. houston is/was a horatio. but the pharma products inventoried from her hotel room are all part of the multi-billion dollar per year sales to non-horatio insomniacs, too. cartel sales are great, solutions for insomnia are nonexistant, adverse consequences up to & including death, accumulate.
ka-ching's the thing. re-courseless, of course (private profits, social costs…). cartels…
I agree that many young-superstars do not get an opportunity to mature and thus suffer the negative outcomes that we have heard of so often. As soon as I heard the news of her death I asked if it could had been drug-related (though it has not yet been confirmed). However, the negative, destructive and fatal power of addiction does not only rob the rich and inmature, it does also the poor whose example is often a parent who was/is addicted, some who gave their child the first taste of drugs (which by the way is what Bobby did with Witney). This is something I deal with on a daily basis as a Correctional Social Work Counselor in a correctional institution for the past 22 years.
ENOUGH of the pity-pot! We’ve got an entire society that worships what they perceive to be “stars.” The public showers money on them and then wonders why they behave badly. Paris Hilton and her ilk are constantly in the news. What kind of a signal does that give to the impressionable youngsters? NFL players, in particular though certainly not singularly, can’t form a complete sentence, are frequently arrested for a never-ending variety of transgressions but are still worshiped by the great unwashed. Yet the greatest benefactors to mankind go mostly unacknowledged and unrewarded. Pogo has been correct for over a half-century!
Yes, indeed to all the above especially ka-chings all ’round. Big pharma and its minions mask symptoms every day and our FDA hands them the okay to do so. Then there are the industry promoters and handlers……happy to hone in on a celebrity’s gifts and talents to enrich themselves and line their pockets. We all want our 15 minutes of fame. RIP, Whitney Houston.
“We all want our 15 minutes of fame”?
Really?
Those of us who are balanced in their lives, happy with themselves and content with their dreams do not seek the adulation of others. To them fame is a far greater evil and not at all appealing.
In fact, there are those walking among us every day who shun fame at every turn.
You can seek your 15 minutes…as for me…you can have mine as well!
…..devereaux
Then why do you promote your blog so?
I find it (sadly) ironic that on my drive home on Friday I was listening to Mr. Ringer’s “The Magic Of Synchronicity”, where he cites Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley as examples as what can happen when the facets of your life are out of sync with one another….
If Whitney Houston was my beloved sister and I recognized her spiral towards early death, what would I do?
Would I talk to her, intervene, maybe tie her up and dry her out? Would I be more influential with my advice to stay clean than those who provided her the dirty chemicals? Would I fear her possible rejection so much that I avoided involvement and left this problem for the “authorities”?
I do believe that jailing her would not have been the answer.
Forward to Bieber.
I’m surprised that Robert did not discuss in this article his own early success–not so early and not so mega as Whitney’s, but still an interesting case. The fame and notoriety achieved by books like Winning Through Intimidation and Looking Out for Number One was part of a cultural phenomenon of the 70s; the impact of these books could not be equaled by his later books. Did Robert have any difficulty coping with the success and attention, or were his circumstances not comparable at all?
Susan Boyle achieved an “instant” mega-success much later in life, after many years of struggle. Despite her well-publicized difficulty dealing with being “gobsmacked” by the sudden pressure and demands on her, all credible reports indicate that she has been learning to cope. One can’t imagine that she would plunge into the kind of self-destructive abyss to which some mega-celebrities succumb.
taking nada away from rr, the 70′s, aptly characterized by tom wolfe, were, “the me decade”, after all, so LOFNO, etc, was very well timed.
ascertain what buyers want, & give it to them is good marketing, but not exactly show biz – a particular context. and people bring their stuff with them – politics/power does not corrupt, it attracts the already corrupt, etc.
check out wolfe’s “a man in full” for some decent stoicism in action (see the prison scene, reality seeker)….
I’m not sure what your comment has to do with anything I said in my post. The issue is the pitfalls of celebrity.
Any hugely successful contribution to the culture is “well-timed.” It was lucky for Whitney Houston’s prospects as a singer that she had not been born in the Stone Age. But Ringer definitely had a lot to do with creating the self-help tenor of the Me Decade. Winning Through Intimidation was published in 1973, not 1979. It was a self-published book that topped the bestseller list for some 36 weeks.
then i’ll clarify. houston was an entertainer (or, for purpose of point, assume her to be such an archetype). rr is a business person (or, much more so, at least – also assume it, if needs be). motives are different. celebrity as the point, vs celebrity as side effect. rr more likely took pulse, “timed” his efforts; houston probably did not time anything (beyond the notes in her songs – which she would also do if transported to the stone age, while rr would more likely time the roll-out of his LOFNO clubs & knapped flints)…..
Ringer had something to say in consequence of what he had learned from his career to date, he had some talent as a writer, he said what he had to say, the publishing world was uninterested–so he self-published. What “timing” would have to do with it I don’t know. He created the timing of his success by refusing to take No for an answer.
I also don’t know that Whitney Houston specifically sought celebrity as a primary goal when she decided to become a singer. But it’s not self-evident that celebrity–and especially the kind of deluging celebrity that she achieved– must have been her top goal. She had a great talent and spirit. Why wouldn’t she want to sing and use her talent?
Ringer is arguing not that the pursuit of celebrity but that celebrity as such has a certain deleterious personal effect when a person is too young to learn to cope with it properly. “It’s not the mega-success that’s the problem. It’s the young age. Immaturity catalyzes mega-success into a living hell. It’s hard to mature when your agent, your entourage, your fans, the media, and your bank account are all telling you that you’re great just the way you are. Not many people reach a meaningful level of maturity in their early twenties, let alone at a younger age.”
< Ringer is arguing not that the pursuit of celebrity but that celebrity as such has a certain deleterious personal effect when a person is too young to learn to cope with it properly.
yes. and i am saying, despite any exceptions that can be found that prove the rule (kurt russell, for example), show biz people, like politicians, are of a type. and i am saying that characterizing celebrity, or power, as "corrupting" is to put the cart ahead of the horse. the corruption was already there, before the ascent.
i did qualify to clarify: assume houston, rr, are archetypes. celebrity for its own sake (as corroborated by the years of off the rails self abusive behavior in houston's case), versus celebrity as effect. rr is business, or closer to that archetype; houston was an entertainer, produced/packaged/sold by business people.
you refuse to see the timing of "looking out for number one", and the "me decade"? maybe rr did not time it at all…maybe he just got lucky & I am giving undue credit, but that’s not my bet.
The few individuals I have encountered in life that I would
characterize as truly outstanding were without exception
altruistic, unassuming, polite and solicitous of others.
Recognition in their professions and fields of endeavor
certainly did not corrupt them. They did nothing overt to
call attention to themselves.
Ergo, excellence begets modesty.
“Altruistic”? That depends on what you mean by the term. Often it is taken to mean “benevolent and helpful” rather than “self-sacrificing.” Many who promote altruism exploit the confusion between and blending of these two meanings. But one generally doesn’t become outstandingly excellent in a chosen field of endeavor without a paramount concern for one’s self and the needs of the self. It would be tragic indeed if one became an outstandingly excellent baseball player or sculptor but hated baseball or hated sculpture. And I don’t know how one could really do it–how one could remain motivated.
Very nice essay on the self-destructiveness of superstars.
There definitely is a set of factors that cause this megastar-self destruct syndrome, and it would be useful and informative if someone analyzed these factors and explained them. It would make a fascinating book.
Many lottery winners, instantly rich heirs, and spoiled brats self-destruct.
Everything has its’ price and one must carefully weigh the cost…
the riches merely increase the grade, speed up an already existing dynamic. the self-medicating erato described is untethered from a budget & then, “faster, faster, the lights are turnin’ red” (eagles, life in the fast lane).
It’s the emotional roller coaster that’s difficult to deal with; the high and lows. There are times mind is on high gear, one has to take alcohol, or relaxant to keep it up to speed. As if the brain could not function without it. Edgar Allan Poe could write well when he drinks (or drunk?); other writers would admit to this. I don’t know about Mr. Ringer.
Doctors in the medical profession are no exception. Due to the hectic schedule of their profession, they too take a drug to relax. Of course, upon consultation with fellow doctors. I read about one guy who have 5 friends who prescribe different drugs and he too, administers an overdose if he feels the drug seem not to work.
Result, he called it prescription drug abuse. Taking too much drug just to feel normal and have a fine mind to cope up with the demands of daily life that require a mind on high gear.
dear right again robert:
youth and immaturity are indeed big factors in the deaths of many entertainers….added to that they are in professions
and have many colleagues where substance abuse and alchohol abuse are too common..even ‘accepted’…..
contrast entertainers with the young hitech ‘whiz kids’
who as serious students,engineers,etc….needed
discipline at a young age to complete their rigorous
engineering studies,programming studies..etc…
and found their passions in fields that did not accept substance abuse…
the cost in music and entertainment has been that much of a middle aged generation are now gone…whitney,rick james,barry white,luther vandross,young actors and actresses who faltered in the areas of discipline,immaturity,etc…making classic life mistakes
that could have been avoided if they were serious fans of wisdom and your books…
They all have one thing in common as we all do… they all started out innocent then the world and media ate them alive until finally their bodies and mind could take no-more…very sad..
Whitney, Michael, Elvis, Amy…you were all way to good for the world you lived in..x