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During a recent appearance at a French awards show, Oprah Winfrey made a dramatic claim.
She said that Whitney Houston had fallen from the stage of her talk show during a relapse.
Now, the late singer’s estate is clapping back.
They’re essentially calling Oprah a liar — but not denying that she fell, either.
‘She was absolutely not high’
Whitney Houston’s estate, run by Pat Houston, issued a statement to TMZ in response to Oprah’s anecdote.
“Whitney absolutely fell off the stage,” the statement began by acknowledging.
“But,” the Houston estate continued, “it was during a sound check.”
The statement asserted: “And it was due to the darkness of the area and her unfamiliarity with the stage.”
Mincing no words, the Houston estate insisted: “She was absolutely not high.”
Oprah Winfrey reveals Whitney Houston once fell off the stage while performing on her show, but she asked the audience not to tell the media about it.
“I begged them not to put those pictures out, because it would ruin her life. And they did not.” pic.twitter.com/ATri84hsLn
— Variety (@Variety) June 23, 2026
“Like many people, she faced personal battles,” the statement acknowledged.
“But it is inaccurate and unfair to attach that struggle to every performance or every chapter of her life,” the Houston estate stressed.
“What the studio audience witnessed on stage was the result of discipline, talent, and commitment — not the assumptions others project,” the statement affirmed.
“Whitney’s humanity included triumphs and struggles, but on that day, she showed up as the professional and gifted artist she always worked to be,” the estate praised.
The statement added: “We owe her the dignity of telling the truth, not repeating myths.”
Oprah says that she begged witnesses to keep it secret
As we previously shared, Oprah was at France’s Lumière Theatre to receive the Cannes LionHeart Award.
While on the stage, she told the audience an anecdote about Houston’s September 2009 appearance on her eponymous talk show.
This was, of course, the singer’s final time as her guest on the program.
According to Oprah, the singer had recently relapsed.
She described Houston as being so high at the time that she had fallen from the stage.
At time time, Oprah says that she begged the audience to not share photos or any word of the fall.
And it appears that fans honored her request.
We have to note that it is possible to simply fall from a stage. It happens.
Stages can be dangerous, which is why the “ghost light” is a key part of theater tradition.
That said, sometimes people relapse without their family knowing. We don’t know what Oprah witnessed, or believed that she witnessed, that day.
Regardless, Houston went on to die about two and a half years later. She remains dearly missed.