Don Lemon Was 'Honored' to Interview a Music Legend for 'This Morning'

By Ashley Turner

Even Don Lemon can be starstruck. The anchor has expressed gratitude for the opportunity to interview a music legend for a recent edition of CNN This Morning. In a Dec. 26 tweet, Lemon promoted his exclusive chat, writing, "Whitney Houston is one of my favorite singers. I was honored to sit down with the man who discovered her-legendary music producer @CliveDavis, to talk about working with Whitney & his new movie I Wanna Dance With Somebody." This week, Davis sat with the CNN host to talk about the biopic he helped to produce and described the first time he met Houston. "The first time I met Whitney was really at her audition for me. She had been doing background singing in her mother's [Emily 'Cissy' Houston] act. Cissy was playing Sweetwaters, a club, and Whitney sang two songs that night. One was 'Home' from The Wiz and the other was 'The Greatest Love Of All.'" He continued, "Now, she didn't know — I don't know how many people know — I had commissioned the song, 'The Greatest Love Of All,' eight years earlier for [the Muhammad Ali film, The Greatest]. And I got Michael Masser and Linda Creed, they wrote 'The Greatest Love Of All.' I had recorded it with George Benson. We had a top 10 R&B hit, and then this beautiful, 19-year-old girl gets to the microphone, and as soon as she started singing that song, I was stunned."

Davis signed the New Jersey native to her first major record deal in 1983. The revered mogul is recognized for helping to turn Houston into a global star whose vocals remain unrivaled today. The longtime Houston collaborator also stated it took him some time to realize that the star had drug problems, saying he missed all the warning signs. "She was loyal, devoted. She always was on when she was with me. So, admittedly, I didn't see the sign early on… Clearly, unmistakably, the lowest, if you ask me, the lowest would be the [2001] Michael Jackson concert [30th Anniversary Celebration, The Solo Years] at Madison Square Garden. She walks out on stage and I can't believe my eyes: She's a skeleton. Now, Whitney was so prideful of her fashion, of her look, of her dress— you never suggested to Whitney what to wear, what her hairstyle should be. I never saw her looking like that. I was scared." The "I Will Always Love You" singer, wearing a black dress with one shoulder, looked emaciated during her performance. When Davis saw Houston's sunken cheeks and prominent bones in her clavicle and sternum, he became aware of drug addiction's toll on her. He wrote a letter to her as a result. "I said 'You have a severe problem, and you have to deal with it. And it's a matter of life or death," said the five-time Grammy Award winner.

 In his documentary, Clive Davis: Soundtrack of Our Lives, he talked candidly about his decades-long relationship with Houston. He also read the letter he sent after her performance. He wrote: "When I got home, I cried. My dear, dear Whitney, the time has come. Of course, I know you don't want to hear this. Of course, I know that you're saying that Clive is being foolishly dramatic. Of course, I know that your power of denial is in overdrive dismissing everything I and everyone else is saying to you…I join your mother in pleading with you to face up to the truth now, right now, and there is no more time or postponement. You need help and it must begin now." Davis said Houston appeared happy and healthy and talked about her sobriety just two days before she tragically died in February 2012. He told Page Six she had made concerted efforts to kick her habits. "She was showing me what she had done in rehab, how she had given up smoking, how she had cleared her throat of nicotine. And she was wanting to start going in the studio… I never would have thought, 48 hours before her death, that she would pass, that there would be that horrendous, premature end to her life."

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