Whitney Houston emotionally honored by Kevin Costner and Jennifer Hudson at Clive Davis gala at Beverly Hilton
Just a week before the 11th anniversary of whitney-houston-1963-2012/” data-ylk=”slk:Whitney Houston’s tragic death at the Beverly Hilton;elm:context_link;itc:0″ class=”link “Whitney Houston’s tragic death at the Beverly Hilton, Jennifer Hudson honored the legendary singer with a performance of “Greatest Love of All” in the historic hotel’s ballroom. Kevin Costner also appeared, paying tribute to his bodyguard-costar-whitney-houston-2022-sag-awards/” data-ylk=”slk:The Bodyguard costar;elm:context_link;itc:0″ class=”link “The Bodyguard costar with a touching speech.
“We were both struck by Whitney the first time we first met her,” Costner said of himself and legendary record producer Clive Davis, who hosted the 2023 pre-Grammy gala with the Recording Academy on Saturday night.
Everett Collection Whitney Houston in the 1992 film ‘The Bodyguard’
“Whitney would be our common ground, and from that moment we all worked as one collective… so powerful that for one moment in time the entire world seemed focused on this one country song,” he continued, referencing Houston’s cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You”, which served as the lead single for The Bodyguard. “Whitney had become the most celebrated singer of her generation, but she was an untrained actress and it was unclear if this was something she should aspire to or even something that was good for her career. All three of us would take a huge leap.”
“I needed to make the movie I was imagining,” said Costner, who also served as producer on The Bodyguard. “Whitney saw it as a chance to reinvent herself. But for Clive it was a career move that had ‘recipe for disaster’ written all over it. I needed Clive. I needed his trust and his blessing and I needed the one thing that he wasn’t used to giving up: control.”
Houston died Feb. 11, 2012 in a Beverly