Gay Rumors Resurface After Houston's Death

Rumors that Whitney Houston was a lesbian have been circulating for more than 30 years. In the pop singer's heyday, many speculated that Houston had a relationship with her personal assistant, Robyn Crawford, the Daily Beast reported.

Houston met Crawford when she was 16. The two became best friends and Crawford dropped out of Monmouth College to work for the singer. In 1987, when Houston was 23, she told Time Magazine that Crawford was the "sister I never had." Both women told the media that they were not gay but Houston said, "My mother taught me that when you stand in the truth and someone tells a lie about you, don't fight it. I'm not with any man. I'm not in love. People see Robyn with me, and they draw their own conclusions. Anyway, whose business is it if you're gay or like dogs? What others do shouldn't matter. Let people talk. It doesn't bother me because I know I'm not gay. I don't care."

"I tell my family, 'You can hear anything on the streets, but if you don't hear it from me, it's not true," Crawford told Time.

Nevertheless, the media and the public constantly questioned the diva's sexuality. Even though she ruled the pop charts and sold millions of records, Houston still lived with Crawford.

The Daily Beast points out that blogger Daryl Deino, wrote in 2009 that, "Anybody who works in the recording industry knows about Whitney and Robyn's relationship; they barely did anything to hide it during recording sessions."

There were also rumors in the 80s and 90s that Houston was linked with "Top Gun" star, Kelly McGillis. Houston said she would often visit the actress in Chicago in 1991 while McGillis was working on the movie, "The Babe." McGillis came out as a lesbian in 2009 but told the San Diego Gay and Lesbian news that she never encountered Houston.

"I've never met Whitney Houston. I think she's vastly talented, but I have never met the woman," she said.

In 1992, Houston married Bobby Brown and the lesbian rumors started to vanish. Instead, the pop singer found herself facing new rumors that claimed she was addicted to drugs, which turned out to be true and led to her demise.

After her divorce in 2007, however, the lesbian rumors came back into the spotlight, thanks to a tell-all book Brown wrote. In his book, "Bobby Brown: The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But..." he said that his relationship with Houston was, "doomed from the very beginning. I think we got married for all the wrong reasons. Now, I realize Whitney had a different agenda than I did when we got married... I believe her agenda was to clean up her image, while mine was to be loved and have children. The media was accusing her of having a bisexual relationship with her assistant, Robin [sic] Crawford. Since she was the American Sweetheart and all, that didn't go too well with her image... In Whitney's situation, the only solution was to get married and have kids. That would kill all speculation, whether it was true or not."

Houston was found dead on Feb. 11, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, in Beverly Hills, Calif. The cause of death is still not known but authorities say there were "no obvious signs of criminal intent."