Tonight, the death of troubled singer/actress Whitney Houston was announced.  She was 48 years old and leaves behind a daughter.  And troubled doesn’t even begin to describe what she was.

The same can be said for singers Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse, who both died of drug overdoses in recent years.  It is likely (but not confirmed) that Ms. Houston also died due to drug issues.  Over the years I’ve been alive, plenty of talented singers, actors, and other celebrities have died the same way, including Elvis, Curt Cobain, and many many others.

It probably won’t surprise you that I am not sympathetic.  In fact, I am probably the opposite of sympathetic.  And what bothers me the most is how people will go on and on about the “lost talent,” how she just “didn’t know how to handle fame” and how her now-ex-husband was to blame because he introduced her to drugs.  Somehow, these people will say, she couldn’t help it, it was someone else’s fault, etc.

Well, the reality is, she was a grown woman.  She made gabillions of dollars singing and acting.  She had fans, young and old, who bought her music and went to her moves.  She had a choice to be sober, or not.  She also had a choice to get help when she needed it, which she apparently did not do. And she could afford to hire people to surround her and tell her she was perfect, that what she was doing was fine, that would cover for her when she couldn’t perform or she acted not like herself but like the drugged-out woman she was.

Why, again, do we all want to be rich and famous?

I don’t have sympathy for her or her death because she chose this life.  She chose to drug herself to death.  She chose it as sure as I chose to put on my slippers this morning, or chose to have eggs for breakfast. Fame, fortune, and “talent” does not make you immune from the consequences of your actions and choices. No one made her take drugs, or drink herself into oblivion.  No one was standing there with a gun pointed at her forcing her to do anything.

What’s hardest for me is realizing how many people look up to, and idolize, these characters.  There is nothing to idolize about a drunk.  There is nothing to idolize about a strung-0ut singer living in a hotel or a mansion, their life frittering away as sure as the seeds on a dandelion head.  “She was about to make a comeback,” some would say.  No, she wasn’t.  She was about to kill herself with drugs.  This time she succeeded.  Has the world lost someone great? Not really.  She is certainly not anyone I want my kids looking up to, emulating, wanting to be just like.  No way.

That is the sad part. That people will feel sorry for her.  That people will make excuses for her behavior. That people will blame others  for her demise. Really.  She was a grown woman, completely capable of making her own choices in life. And that’s exactly what she did.  Let’s give those choices exactly the energy and attention they deserve and move on.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at 8:29 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.