“I would like to thank Cissy and Dionne for the honour of being here. Everyone treating my wife and I so gracefully. The song ‘I Will Always Love You’ almost wasn’t. She was meant to sing ‘What Becomes of the Broken Hearted’. So what becomes our broken hearts. For a moment we should dry our tears, suspend our sorrow and anger. Never forget that Cissy and Bobbi Kristina are sitting among us. Your mother and I had a lot in common [he said to Bobbi Kristina]. He’s a boy, she’s a girl. I’m white, she’s black. You’d think we had nothing in common but we did. We both grew up in a Baptist church. My grandmother led the choir and played the piano. I can see her as a skinny girl running around this place, using her smile to get out of trouble and Cissy having enough of it. As I’m sure of Whitney’s place in musical history. I’m also sure of how she felt about her mother. ‘Was I good enough. Could I have done better. Did they really like me or were they just being polite because they’re scared of you Cissy?’
[As for The Bodyguard] , Whitney was nervous and scared that she wasn’t good enough for the role. But I told her I would be with her every step of the way. I wanted to tell her that the fame was rigged. That I didn’t care how the test went, that she could fall down and start speaking in tongues. That somehow it was a kind of acting method. The Whitney I knew despite her worldwide fame always worried. ‘Am I good enough. Am I pretty enough. Will they like me’. The part that made her great and the part that made her great was also the part that made her stumble. A lot of men could have played my role. But you, Whitney, were the only person who could have played Rachel Marron. People didn’t just like you, Whitney. They loved you. I was your pretend bodyguard once. And now you’re gone too soon. What you did was the rarest of achievements. You set the bar so high that your colleagues don’t even sing that little country song. What’s the point.
I think Whitney would tell you, little girls wanting to become singers: guard your bodies and guard the precious miracle you have.’ Off you go Whitney, off you go. Escorted by an army of angels to your heavenly father. When you sing before him, don’t you worry. You will be good enough.”
Jeez. Talk about rip my heart out and shove it to me over a table full of sad things. And what’s equally sad is that this is probably the first and only post on Evil Beet that’s ever been categorized in both Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. Maybe if things didn’t turn out the way they did with Whitney and her drug issues, this mutual categorization could have been better used for something like, I don’t know, a Bodyguard reunion or something.
Hey. A lady who was a little girl in the eighties and nineties can dream, can’t she?
You can check out the full speech below.
oh damn…that made me cry. Missed him on Saturday – thanks for posting.
Nicely done, Kevin.
I don’t know at what point this was during the funeral, but Bobbi Kristina looked very composed. She was listening carefully and if she was crying, it was just a few tears.
The press makes it out that she has been hysterical and drugging it up ever since her mom died.
I hope she gets to grieve with loved ones instead of getting thrown into rehab-another rumor. She needs to be surrounded by people who love her, not strangers.