World Much Too Eager To Replace Whitney Houston With Her Daughter
Tremendous talent and legendary singer Whitney Houston hasn’t even been dead a week and the press is scrambling to replace her. And while it’s understandable that everyone is mourning the loss of a truly gifted artist who left us much too young, it’s problematic in that we’re looking to her struggling 18-year-old daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown to fill the void.
The young lady had a trying weekend when Whitney passed away Saturday as she was barred from seeing her mother’s body and reportedly shouted at police officers at the scene. She has since been hospitalized for anxiety twice and is feared to be suicidal. Her father, Bobby Brown, has cancelled a performance to be with his daughter in Los Angeles.
Yet despite the out pour of concern and well wishes, which have been expressed from everyone from Bobby Brown, the Houston family, and even Sony, the prodding at Bobbi Kristina’s singing talents have already commenced. Although Whitney reportedly fostered her daughter’s singing, as evidenced in that famous Diane Sawyer interview and a Good Morning America performance in 2009, the media is much too eager to see a star in young Bobbi Kristina.
Just this morning, ABC News reports speculation from a variety of editors curious as to whether Bobbi does possess a gift. Us Weekly‘s senior editor Ian Drew even assesses her voice in comparison to her mother’s:
“She’s not her mother, but she’s not the worst singer either,” he told ABCNews.com. “With the right songs and auto tuning anyone can be big. ” [tagbox tag=”whitney houston”]
Billy Johnson Jr., a senior editor at Yahoo! Music, also comments on the young lady’s singing capabilities, saying that Bobbi Kristina’s vocals have improved since her Good Morning America concert with her mother.
Either way, a scrutiny towards Bobbi’s talents — although inevitable should she pursue a career in the public eye — read abrasive given the very recent passing of her mother. You’d think everyone could at least wait until after Whitney’s funeral to have at her daughter’s star potential.
But old clips of the kid humming a few bars, or even the video below of her covering Adele‘s “Someone Like You” last fall, are now being revisited with new interest in the context of Whitney’s death. Regardless of whether Bobbi truly wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps, this week hardly seems like the time to be launching into debates of if she can successfully handle her mother’s torch.
We’re all grieving the demise of a woman so iconic and captivating that it seems almost instinctive to want to latch onto whatever pieces of her remain alive in her child. But for right now, Bobbi clearly needs all those pieces to herself.
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