Whitney Houston as a child portrait

Name: Whitney Elizabeth Houston
Date of Birth : 9th August 1963
Place of Birth: Newark, New Jersey
Siblings: Brothers Michael and Gary (half brother)
Height : 5′ 8″
Religion: Baptist
Occupation: Singer/actress
Instruments: Piano
Nickname: Nippy, The Voice

Pardon my subjective attitude in certain moments, but we could say that this article is written by one of her many, many fans.

How strange are the ways of God… This R&B pop queen, the greatest singer of all times, with astonishing vocal abilities has first started singing in the local church at the age of 11 in Newark. Now, 37 years after, her last album is called I Look To You. Again you’ll see, God  and her religion had an important role in her life. She was no stranger to gospel, her voice was had the strength of it underneath. She’d brought a special energy into any song and you could feel that by the shudder on your skin.

Whitney Houston at first grade

As a child, Whitney was shy and polite but knew how to stand up for herself. She attended Roman Catholic girls high school Mount Saint Dominic Academy in Caldwell where she met one of he closest friends Robyn Crawford.

Her parents Emily(”Cissy”) and John Houston divorced at the her kindergarten age but had supported their youngest child in her singing career. Her mother, Grammy wining singer herself, had encouraged her and took her to her gigs.

After her few first solos in her childhood, Whitney sang backup for Chaka Khan and Lou Rawls. She also started modeling at the mid-teens but then at the age of 19 was spotted by American record producer and music industry executive Clive Davis who had recognized this diva who at her very beginning knew how to control the stage. This is when he realized that before showing her to the world, all must be prepared perfectly.

Whitney Houston in her high school days

Whitney Houston's first album released in 1985

Whitney receiving one of her many awards

Whitney Houston's first Grammy award in 1986!

Clive Davis had teamed Whitney with professionals who had helped her form her first collection, supplying best songs for her and that included the most prestigious song-writers.

After launching her career in 1984 in a duet with  Pendergrass on the hit single “Hold Me” she came to the public attention for the first time and with a boom.

Ever since then her music and talent has been planetary popular. On both sides of the Atlantic.

She presented herself with “You Give Good Love” and “Saving All My Love For You” but she won the first Grammy Award thanks to “Saving All My Love For You” for the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance on Feb 25, 1986.

She just kept on receiving awards for her awesome music and voice.

1986 How Will I Know, Greatest Love Of All, 1987 I Wonna Dance With Somebody, Run To You, 1992 I will Always Love You, I Look To You  brought her 11 Billboard Hot NO.1 singles in USA and 4 UK Billboard Hot NO.1.

• She sold over 120 million albums and 49 million singles world-wide.

• Only one album, The Bodyguard, was sold in 34 million copies

• Only one single, I Will Always Love You was sold in 8 million copies.

Whitney Houston awarded with another Grammy in 1986.

In her career, there are more than 400 awards and more than 500 nominations. These, and many other achievements puts her in most awarded female artists of all times.

She was his diva! Clive Davis had believed in her from the day one he heard her singing. Who wouldn’t!? She sounded heavenly.

They’ve been friends ever since they started working together. He was always there to support, advise and comfort her and was always ready to work with her.

With him, and of course many others, Whitney Houston became(according to Guinness World Records) the most awarded female figure of all times.

This famous pop princess also proved to have a great acting talent in her first movie, The Bodyguard, released in 1992, where she played Rachel Marron, also a singing star, who hires a bodyguard(Kevin  Costner) to protect her from a creepy fan who stalked her. Movie was planetary popular and successful. By the end of 1992, it had scored $200 million worldwide, and it went on to become the 5th biggest grossing film ever!! ($500 million).  After movie premiere, media along with her fans waited patiently to hear was there or will there be anything ‘’more’’ then work between Whitney and Kevin Costner, who was mega popular at that time, but nothing ever happened.

Not only the movie got to be so triumphant, but the 6 soundtracks from the movie Whitney recorded, including the outrageously successful ‘I Will Always Love You’ written by Dolly Parton.

She appeared in three other movies but also had a lot of other offers she didn’t take.

• Waiting To Exhale(1995)
• The Preacher’s Wife(1996)
• Cinderella (1998)

During her spectacular career, except the time spent in studio, appearing in numerous talk shows, performing on regional and worldwide tours she had always found the time for charity work.

Whitney Houston Foundation for Children was formed by Whitney. It was an organization that took care for the homeless and children with cancer and AIDS. She again received one of her many awards for her humanitarian work, as of course did Whitney’s involvement with the United Negro College Fund.

Although she had a beautiful, shiny and successful career, her life wasn’t so nice privately.  Her drug abuse problems began after she met Bobby Brown in 1989. They dated for couple of years and got married on July 18, 1992. Their only child is a girl Bobbi Kristina, born on March 4th, 1993. Three years after she suffered a miscarriage, which took place in Texas, just a few days after she revealed she was pregnant for the second time. She had a troubled and stormy marriage to Bobby Brown cause of his bad temper. He used to publicly humiliate her, spit on her in front of their friends, family and unfortunately their daughter.  He got arrested for drugs and alcohol.

Under the influence of Bobby, Whitney herself had visited rehab several times for cocaine, marijuana and alcohol abuse. Accusations from both sides were launched trough media about who got who into these problems. (I believe it’s Bobbys fault )

On April 2007, Whitney filed for divorce and got the custody over their teenage daughter who today has some similar drug issues. Her ex-boyfriend photographed her snorting cocaine, after which Whitney sent her to rehab as well.

I Look To You…

Her last album that was released on August 28th, 2009, was Whitney’s comeback album.

Her seventh album contains great songs, written by great artists like Alicia Keyes, Akon and R.Kelly who btw wrote this song, but it is obvious that her vocal abilities were not like those we would have expected.

Album is solid, although we’re not use to solid when it comes to Whitney Houston. Her former addiction affected her voice and have finally damaged it. She still refuses to let go of smoking cigarettes, according to unofficial sources.

Financially, album was very successful, although some fans weren’t pleased with her performance on certain tours but then again there were other fans who were satisfied with it and are thrilled to have the legend back.

Album is named after a song which is helping her explain all she’s been trough and how weak she was until she found out her own strength, thanks to her faith.

Whitney is one of those artists that can interpret songs so good that she makes you believe that all she sings about actually did happen to her, well it’s a fact as far as this album is concerned.

And on the very end, I could just add that I’m one of those people who hope to have her again with us for as long as it’s possible to knock us off our feet with her appearance and sound of her voice.

Whitney’s quotes:

• ”I decided long ago never to walk in anyone’s shadow; if I fail, or if I succeed at least I did as I believe.”
• ”God gave me a voice to sing with, and when you have that, what other gimmick is there?”
• I finally faced the fact that it isn’t a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems.
• I like being a woman, even in a man’s world. After all, men can’t wear dresses, but we can wear the pants.

One and only, Whitney Houston…

Celebrity X no. 21

Hi everybody! It’s finally time for a new Celebrity X article. This celebrity’s name is going to be a little harder to guess than those of Sarah Jessica Parker and Patrick Swayze from our previous posts. I don’t know about you but I think this face is so adorable (yeah, there’s a new girl writer on Celebrities than and now and things are gonna change..) I’m sure you were able to see past the soft girlish features and figure out that we’re dealing with a boy, i.e. a man by now. As singer of a world famous hard rock band this celebrity was the heartthrob of many a teenage girl in the late eighties and early nineties. I know that if you’re like me you’re probably wondering right about now how this sweet innocent boy could end up in a hard rock band. Not that there’s anything wrong with hard rock, but he just doesn’t seem the type, does he? His real name was William Bruce, but he changed it to a name he also later used on stage. He kept the last name though. He was born to a very religious family and had a troubled childhood. As a teenager he became quite the rebel, earning the reputation of a  local juvenile delinquent. He soon fled his small hometown of Lafayette, Indiana and moved to Los Angeles hoping to start a successful music career. The band in which he was the lead singer reached stardom in the late 80s mainly on account of the song he had written to his then girlfriend. During his career he was known for his great live performances as well notorious lateness, getting on stage up to two hours later than scheduled which often caused riots. He eventually split with his former band members (the most popular of which is Slash) and the band stopped performing for several years.  His career followed a slow downwards spiral ending up in the release of the long-awaited album Chinese Democracy in 2008, which was not as successful as anticipated. Oh, and his name is an anagram for “oral s*x”. Did you guess yet?

Axl Rose

It’s Axl Rose! Yes, the former hard rock hunk turned weird braid sporting old geezer. The Guns and roses debut album Appetite for destruction released in 1987 was a commercial success, with 28 million copies sold worldwide. The albums Use Your Illusion I and Use your Illusion II, released simultaneously, debuted at No. 1 and No.2 of the US chart. They are the only band ever to have pulled it off.  With the increasing success of the band, Axl started to get harder to work with. He just couldn’t get along with the other band members and he blackmailed them into signing the rights to the band name over to him. That’s why he later performed with different people under the same band name. He was diagnosed with manic-depressive disorder but later questioned the accuracy of the diagnosis. Once No. 64 on Rolling Stone‘s 100 Greatest Singers of All Time in 2008, Axl tried to regain former success with the album Chinese Democracy which unfortunately fell short of the band’s previous accomplishments. Most fans of the band didn’t like it very much. What do you think?

Celebrity X no. 19

Hey!! Guess what?? It’s time for another Celebritx X issue.. Hahahah, you never saw this one coming, now did you?? Yeah, right.. lol.. Ok, as I said, here’s another Celebrity X issue. This one is a kind of sad as we all felt a loss when he deceased.. He was born in Houston, Texas, the second child of Patricia, a choreographer, dance instructor, and dancer, and Jesse, an engineering draftsman. He was one of the greatest acting icons of Hollywood, he died of cancer at the age of 57, and he danced his way into viewers’ hearts with “Dirty Dancing” and then broke them with his role in the movie “Ghost”. If you don’t know by now, haven’t watched television or rented a movie in the last 20 years.. Ok, run to your local video store, NOW, but first get inside the post to reveal who it is so you’d know what movies to rent..

Patrick Swayze "Sexiest Man Alive" 1991

Yes!! It’s Patrick Swayze, an American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. As George Clooney was in 2006, Patrick Swayze was named “The Sexiest Man Alive” by People magazine in 1991. Swayze’s breakthrough role came with his performance as a dance instructor Johnny Castle in the 1987 film “Dirty Dancing”. He was also known for his role in the film “Ghost”(which was nominated for multiple Academy Awards) where he played the role of Demi Moore’s husband who was killed by a thief and became a ghost. He also co-starred in “Waking Up in Reno”, with Billy Bob Thornton and Charlize Theron, and in “Forever Lulu”, with Melanie Griffith.

Celebrity X no. 18

Today’s Celebrity X issue is a bit harder to guess then the previous ones.. I guess that you’re not even sure if it’s a boy or a girl ’cause of the hair and all. lol Well yeah, if I didn’t know who it is I’d probably be wondering too. Ok, it’s a boy.. and I’ll give you a few hints that will get that doubt right out of your head.. His father was a truck driver and a drummer and he died of cancer when his son was only 10 years old. He was born in Oakland, California and was raised in Rodeo, California. His interest in music started at a young age. As a teenager he originally was into metal music, but got into punk after hearing the Sex Pistols song “Holidays in the Sun”. He was the youngest of six children and he wrote the song “Wake Me Up When September Ends” as a memorial for his father. If you don’t know who it is by now by now.. Well, you really should.. lol. Ok His last name is Armstrong and he is the front man of a punk band that has a certain color it’s name.. The hexadecimal value of this colour is #0F7D19. Hahahah, lol, I’m sure that one helped!! Ok, just get inside the post and find out the answer..

Billie Joe Armstrong

Yes!!! It’s Billie Joe Armstrong, he is born on February 17, 1972 and he is the lead vocalist, chief songwriter and guitarist for the rock band Green Day. Greeeeen (#0F7D19), lol. Ok enough with my stupid jokes. In 1987, Billie Joe formed a band “Sweet Children” with his childhood friend Mike Dirnt(also on guitar), John Kiffmeyer(Al Sobrante) on drums and Sean Hughes on bass. The next year Hughes left the band and Dirnt switched to bass so they became a tree peace band. They changed the name of the band to “Green day” in April 1989, supposedly “green” was their color of choice ’cause of their fondness of marijuana. This band produced lots af big hits some of which are “When I Come Around”, “Basket Case” and “Jesus of Suburbia”.

Celebrity X no. 16

Hey!! It’s time for another celebrity X issue!! It’s time to introduce some fresh content in the Celebrity X section of Celebritiestan.com I’ll brag for a moment and say that we’ve gathered some great pictures of celebrities when they were young and from their earliest childhood. Have you noticed that we’ve implemented facebook connect to celebritiestan.com. Now you can leave comments on “Celebrities Then and Now” and publish them to your facebook account so your friends can see what you’re watching and you can share your oppinions with them. OK, enough with the bragging… hehCan you guess todays celebrity X?? I’ll give you some hints.. It’s a she…. lol, like you can’t see that for yourself. Ok, she was born on September 4, 1981. Her father is a successful record manager(Mathew) and her mother is a costume designer and hair stylist(Tina). She was born and raised in Houston, Texas where she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child. She achieved fame and success singing in a R&B girl-group from which she later on left and started her solo career. Her first solo hit was “Work It Out” which she wrote for the sountrack of “Austin Powers Goldmember”. Any ideas now?? Well if that wasn’t enough, enter the post and reveal her identity..

Beyonce Knowles

Hahahah, did you see this coming?? Sure, you did.. I think I gave you more then enough info on her. Yes, you guessed it!! It’s Beyonce!! Her full name is Beyoncé Giselle Knowles but she is reffered to as only Beyonce. Beyonce Knowles started her singing career in a R&B girl group “Destiny’s Child” which produced a lot of great hits such as “No, No, No”, “Jumpin’ Jumpin’” and “Say My Name”. Her latest album is “I Am… Sasha Fierce”, her third studio album, from which the song “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” got her nine nominations and ond video of the year award on “2009 MTV Video Music Awards”.

Celebrity X No. 15

I hope that you like our new category called Celebrity Timeline where we present you a life of a celebrity in four pictures. If you are interested, follow this link to the first issue of mentioned category. As soon as possible, when we turn to dedicated server, we will introduce you new exciting categories, as well as standalone galleries of various celebrities for those who keep to that old one “picture is worth a thousand words”.

Today we prepared one of the most popular male singers from one of the Spanish speaking countries. I am not even going to tell you from which country this celebrity is from, because it would be too easy to guess who is today’s Celebrity X. When I say that this singer is from Spanish speaking area, I am sure that you instantly narrowed the choice to few persons. Once young kid, as you can see him on the picture, became famous as a member of one Latin boy band, and later started his solo career in 1991. In over three decades of his singing career, until these days, he has sold more than 55 million albums worldwide. Today he is considered to be a major star in the world of Latin Pop and is considered to have opened the doors for some of his fellow Latin American singers. I don`t want to make it too easy to guess who is our Celebrity X, so now is the time to answer that question, and then to check out if you were right here. And be sure to check the answer by double-clicking on the “+/- Show Answer” link inside the post.


I hope that you didn`t have the answer after the first hint cause it just wouldn’t be fun ! For those who are still wondering about who are we talking about, his name is Enrique Martin Morales. That is his real name, but he is much more known by his stage name. No, he is not Enrique Iglesias, as you could presume according to his name. His stage name is Ricky Martin, and he is a Grammy Award and Latin Grammy Award winning, most famous Puerto Rican pop singer.He was born on December 24, 1971, in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico and grew up in a Catholic home. According to his Catholic upbringing, he was an altar boy and went to Catholic school until he joined Latin boy band Menudo. After several years as a major star in Spanish speaking countries, Ricky Martin prepared his first English in 1999. It`s first and most prominent single was “Livin’ la Vida Loca,” which reached number one in many countries, and earned him a status of worldwide celebrity. You will soon be able to read more about Ricky`s breakthrough in his Celebrities Then and now article where all rare facts about his childhood and less known theater and soap opera acting, as well as Spanish singing era will be revealed. Until then, you can browse for other famous singers in Celebrities Then And Now category, or try our “Next random celebrity” button right down, and see which celebrity is going to pop out next.

Celebrity X No. 13

Like in the previous Celebrity X issue, today we are presenting you another popular American singer. To be more precise, this celebrity became famous pop and R&B singer and songwriter. She was born in Staten Island, New York, although when her parents divorced, mother took her and her younger sister to their grandmother’s home in Rochester, Pennsylvania, a suburb outside of Pittsburgh. For that reason she has spent the majority of her childhood in Pennsylvania. Celebrity from the picture aspired to be a singer from her very young age. At that time, she was known locally as “the little girl with the big voice”, singing in local talent shows and competitions. According to some sources, her brilliant talent provoked fear in all of her competitors. Whenever competitors heard that they would be up against her in any given competition week, they would immediately withdraw. She was so good that soon her peers became jealous of her and would frequently subject her to ridicule. Jealousy even escalated with acts of vandalism around her house including the slashing of the tires on the family car and similar acts. Eventually, the family relocated to Wexford, another suburb in the Pittsburgh area. At least, this time they tried to keep her talent in secrecy to avoid further inconveniences.

She first appeared on national television in 1990 as a contestant on the Star Search program, and went on to star in Disney Channel’s television series The New Mickey Mouse Club from 1993–1994. I hope that until now you have a clue about the possible name of this celebrity, so it is time to find out who are we talking about this time. Be sure to double-click the “+/- Show Answer” link below this text to reveal the answer!!

After her performances at MMC, at the age of fourteen, she recorded her first song, called “All I Wanna Do”, duet with Japanese singer Keizo Nakanishi, which became a huge hit. Soon later, she signed to RCA Records after recording “Reflection”, a song on the soundtrack of the popular 1998 animated film “Mulan”. At that point she became popular across the globe, when she released her debut album, which name is also an answer to this Celebrity X issue. The album, which was a commercial success spawning three number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 is called “Christina Aguilera”, and our young celebrity from the picture is Christina María Aguilera.

Come back soon and read more great facts about her amazing life and see her rare childhood pictures at CelebritiesTAN.com. And in the meantime, check out the story about Britney Spears, her fellow from The Mickey Mouse Club. At that time Britney was her best friend, but later their relationship became complicated, varying from good friends to eternal rivals. You can also try to guess other famous celebrities from our older issues of Celebrity X category. Good luck!!

Celebrity X No. 12

You have probably noticed that in the last few days interval between publishing of new posts is greater than usual. The reason is that we are trying our best to migrate the website to more secure dedicated server, which is really time consuming. In next week or two everything should be done, so please be patient a little bit more. When we finish, site should be more interactive and useful for every visitor. I hope that you liked the article about Jennifer Aniston´s life and gallery with her rare childhood pictures. When we turn to WordPress, we are planning to upload larger number of interesting celebrity pictures in separated galleries, because we are not going to be limited with space any more. I am glad that CelebritiesTAN.com is slowly becoming central place for all of you interested in famous celebrities when they were young, and their way to fame. We are going to continue improving this site to be the most comprehensive and accurate base containing mentioned information and pictures of celebrities on the Internet. I would just like to hear a little bit more feedback from you. Don´t be a shamed and feel free to comment articles or tell us everything what is on your mind.

We have another famous celebrity featured in today Celebrity X issue. It shouldn´t be hard to guess who is the person from the picture. I could say one single fact which would instantly reveal who she is, but I am not going to make it so easy. Lets just say that she is a singer, that she comes from Michigan, and that today she is in her golden middle ages. Through the years, you have heard her numerous hits for thousands of times, so it´s the time to remember her name now. Be sure to double-click on the “+/- Show Answer” link right below this text to reveal the answer. You have be inside the post

If I mentioned that she is the most famous and succesfull pop icon of all time, or that her nickname is “Queen of pop”, I presume that you would instantly think about Madonna Louise Ciccone. Even the Guinness Book of World Records confirms that statement with listing her as the world’s most successful female recording artist of all time and the top-earning female singer in the world with an estimated net worth of unbelievable amount of US$490 million, having sold over 200 million records worldwide. There is so much things to say about Madonna, from her childhood days in Rochester Hills, Michigan, through her beginnings to most interesting moments of her excellent career. Maybe you learned until now that all these themes are usually covered in our Celebrities Then And Now category, so check back soon to read her issue, and until then shorten the waiting with our selection of other famous celebrities from same category. Enjoy!

Celebrity X No. 8

I am constantly trying to improve CelebritiesTAN to become your favorite site where you`ll return each day and find out exciting facts about your favorite celebrities. As you can see for yourself, lot of changes happened in last few weeks, like completely new look and feel of the site. I also added new features like Celebrity X quiz, in the menu on the right side, and new interesting categories are coming soon. I hope that you also share my curiosity about their childhood and their way to success. Given that I prefer some celebrities more than others, I would like to hear about your interests so I can write more about them.

I would appreciate your feedback, because the most important thing for me is to improve your experience as my visitors. Feel free to email me and post you requests. I promise to do my best to fulfill them.

Today I prepared Celebrity X issue which is really interesting, and I can bet that you`ll never find out who it is from just looking at the picture. The kid on the picture looks so hilarious that you could think that it’s some famous country star`s son, or something like that. But when you look at the answer, you`ll surprise how famous this celebrity is today. I’ll give you some clues: He was born on January 31, 1981 in Memphis, Tennessee. He became one of the most famous pop singers today, and he sold his first two solo albums in over 18 million copies worldwide. He came to fame as a lead singer in one of the most popular 90`s boy band. Few years ago he was the first victim of Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d show, where he was duped into thinking his home was repossessed for back taxes. It was so funny that I watched Punk`d regularly since that scene which became one of most known scenes and a real classic of this great show.

His breakthrough in show business was when he started singing in ‘N Sync boy band and he latercontinued with impressive solo career. Maybe you guessed that we are talking about Justin Timberlake, talented all-in-one miracle: pop singer, songwriter, actor and dancer. But did you know that his first attempts at a singing career were country music songs on Star Search as “Justin Randall”? You`ll find out more about this and lot of other facts in his Celebrities Then And Now category really soon.
And I almost forgot: if you still didn`t see it, you can watch his Punk`d scene here!

This is really awesome overview of her childhood and young age through high school and NYC Professional Performing Arts School.

Here you can also see some pictures which are already posted in our Celebrity Then And Now category. Beside interesting pictures and all kind of facts about her you can also watch few Youtube galleries in our recent Britney Spears post. I would like to thank author, because it is pretty rare to see so detailed and exhaustive gallery of Britney Spears pictures on one place. I think that you will especially like how galleries are edited and commented. Enjoy!
Britney Spears growing up, Part 1 (6 months old – 8 years old)

Britney Spears growing up, Part 2 (8 years old – 11 years old)

Britney Spears growing up, Part 3 (11 years old – 15 years old)

Britney Spears growing up, Part 4 (15 years old – 17 years old)

Britney Spears growing up, Part 5 (17 years old – 19 years old)

Britney Spears growing up, Part 6 (19 years old – 21 years old)