Whitney Houston has died in Los Angeles at the age of 48. Her publicist confirmed her death on Saturday evening, but the cause and the exact location of her death are unclear. Houston was one of the best selling recording artists in the 1980s and 1990s.
Whitney Houston in 1987. Photo: Getty
With hits including I Will Always Love You, I Wanna Dance With Somebody and Saving All My Love For You, her impressive list of awards includes two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards. Strongly influenced by her mother, gospel singer Cissy Houston, as well as Cissy's cousin Dionne Warwick and her godmother Aretha Franklin, Whitney is reported to have sold more than 170 million albums and is the most awarded female act ever according to the Guinness Book of Records. She also gained a secondary career as an actress thanks to films like The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale.
But increasingly her musical achievements were overshadowed by drink and drug abuse, and her much-publicised marriage and divorce to Bobby Brown.
News of Houston's death came on the eve of US music's biggest night - the Grammy Awards.