Whitney Houston‘s former bodyguard opened up about the nature of their relationship in a new interview.
David Roberts protected the music icon at a time when she was one of the biggest stars on the planet. His work with her helped inspire Whitney‘s iconic movie The Bodyguard, which she starred in with Kevin Costner.
During a recent conversation ahead of the release of his memoir “Protecting Whitney,” David reflected on his time with Whitney and shared little details about their relationship that ended up being played out on the big screen.
He also said that there was a time when he might have been tempted to “give up everything” for more with the star.
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Speaking to the Daily Mail, David affirmed that he and Whitney‘s relationship was not romantic, unlike what we saw play out in The Bodyguard.
“If you cross that line, you lose your objectivity, and that makes it dangerous for the person you’re protecting,” he explained. “That was why Frank Farmer [Costner's character in The Bodyguard] and Rachel Marron [Houston] couldn’t be together — he crossed the line and that was the end of him in the capacity of what he was employed to do.”
Despite that, there were still some very real elements of their relationship that played out onscreen.
“Much of what was contained in the film, she and I actually lived through,” he said. “Little details such as Rachel holding onto the back of his shirt to escape crowds of fans. That was how we did it.”
Although David said that he wasn’t initially sold on the idea of working with Whitney, he found her to be “gracious, shy, introverted, well-mannered and one of the most beautiful women I had ever met” upon meeting.
He was incredibly dedicated to his job, protecting her from any threat. David excelled.
“Whitney did not know the level of threats she was exposed to,” he told the outlet. “She had no reason to know. That’s why she employed me. I was there to absorb them and deal with all the threats.”
David even recalled a time that he tried to protect Whitney amid her struggles with addiction. He said that he reached out to her lawyers about members of her team who were providing her with drugs, which led to him being fired shortly thereafter.
“I put myself between her and those threats. ‘You want to get to Whitney? Go ahead and try, see what happens,’” he said about their time together. Elsewhere in the interview he added, “I was hired to protect her life and protected her the best I could. But I couldn’t protect her from herself.”
