Whitney: Can I Be Me? – The soul singer whose gilded life slid into drug abuse

She was found dead in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub in February 2012 after suffering a heart attack. 

Whitney had been struggling with a drug problem for many years previously and her marriage to singer Bobby Brown was troubled, tabloid fodder. 

Yet in the new film Whitney: Can I Be Me? when you hear her clear, strong, voice in footage shot by director Rudi Dolezal on her 1999 tour, and see her classic beauty at its height, all memories of the shambling, unhappy woman that Whitney Houston became are blown away for a moment and the audience can see her at her peak. 

This is the Whitney that director Nick Broomfield wants people to remember. 

He has co-directed the film with Dolezal, using the intimate archive footage that Dolezal shot of her with her entourage on the tour, plus archive interviews Dolezal filmed with her family to create a portrait of Houston that aims to let her own voice be heard. 

“I knew very little about Whitney beforehand,” says Broomfield. “Obviously I knew that she was incredibly beautiful but I wasn’t such a fan. I am now, because I thought her performances were unbelievable. 

“Previously I thought her music was too manufactured but when you hear her sing a capella it’s pretty amazing – it hits you right there [he points to his heart] – and that’s what she was all about. 

“She was a massive icon with an amazing influence; mainly bringing people enormous happiness. And with such a massive fall from grace I thought there must be a story there worth telling.” 

Broomfield is an acclaimed documentary maker, with a track record of working with the trickier characters of the music business. He’s made films about the controversial deaths of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and rappers Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur. 

Putting together the Whitney Houston documentary was another challenging project. Her family are working on their own film with director Kevin McDonald and weren’t happy about Broomfield and Dolezal’s project. 

“I think they tried to stop it from the beginning,” says Broomfield. 

“They and their representatives would be ringing up the company who commissioned the film and asking them to drop it.” 

But although there was no direct participation of the Houston family in the film (Whitney’s brothers and mother are seen in archive interviews), there is still enough material to offer an insight into the singer’s life. 

One especially revealing participant is Whitney’s real-life bodyguard, ex-Scotland Yard policeman David Roberts. 

“He was really enthusiastic to take part, and he didn’t want any money, which is frankly unusual for stories like this,” says Broomfield of the man who was so loyal to Whitney that he wrote to her lawyers about his concern over her and her entourage’s drug use, such was his desire to intervene. 

“David was clearly besotted with Whitney,” Broomfield continues. “He had total recall, and a mind like a steel trap. I remember him describing meeting Bobby Brown for the first time and describing him down to what his socks were like.” 

And his reward for expressing concern about Whitney’s health? He was fired, and never heard from her again. Can I Be Me? shows how Whitney needed more real, solid, relationships to support her. 

She was the girl with everything yet Dolezal’s behind-the-scenes filming shows her sad and seemingly unhappy backstage at gigs then coming alive onstage. 

We see her close friendship with childhood pal Robyn Crawford crumble as Bobby Brown edges her out. 

From the film, it’s clear they hate each other. Whitney’s mental state wasn’t helped by having to financially support a huge entourage. 

“She was incredibly loyal to her brothers, who had their own problems. She loved them to pieces and wanted them with her throughout. She supported them, their wives, their kids, their friends and so on.” 

Broomfield was keen to give Whitney her own voice, from archive interviews: “There was a long time when the film wasn’t working and I think it was because you really weren’t feeling Whitney. 

“When we went back to re-edit it, we decided that we wanted as much of her voice in it as possible; we wanted to be emotionally with her in every scene. 

“When the film started to work that way we got quite choked up with her story. Here you had a wonderful human being who was very funny, fun-loving and super-generous, who got stuck in this situation she couldn’t get out of. And people didn’t listen to her.” 

Broomfield has a particular gift for making films about troubled women, including one about American serial killer Aileen Wuornos. “Obviously Aileen was a very different and hard case to deal with, but I had a long relationship with her that was some kind of illogical bond there. 

“Even though Whitney was dead, I felt the same kind of thing with her. There was this wonderful spirit, this wonderful soul, and the more I got to know about her the stronger it became.” 

Broomfield is sad about the discoveries he made about Whitney’s unfulfilled plans for the future. 

“She was starting a foundation for underprivileged girls who had some singing talent, to help them get started; to give them scholarships and money. She’d started this when she wasn’t in great shape herself. 

“She had also paid school fees for some girls she’d met when she was touring South Africa. She was passionate about helping these girls and I think it’s such a pity Whitney never got to fulfil a larger role in her own life, rather than being forced to fulfil more and more for other people.”

Whitney: Can I Be Me? is in cinemas now