WHITNEY Houston’s chauffeur has revealed the tragic depths to which the superstar sank while hooked on crack cocaine.

Limo driver Al Bowman drove the singer for two decades.

And he witnessed first hand her spiral into a drug-fuelled meltdown.

He watched helplessly as Whitney and husband Bobby Brown became wasted in the back of his car almost daily, set fire to his limo while “free-basing” cocaine and even indulged in a threesome with an A-list soul singer after a wild night out.

Whitney even demanded that Al drive to rundown ghettos in LA so she could buy more drugs.

But most shockingly, Whitney’s drug abuse became so severe that she openly smoked crack in front of her young daughter Bobbi Kristina.

Al said: “I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was Whitney Houston in my limo, smoking crack with her six or seven-year-old daughter sat next to her. It was heart-breaking.

“I’ve driven some big stars over the years – Michael and Janet Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne, Motley Crew – but Whitney was by far the worst behaved.

“It was tragic to see. Here was this glamorous star, adored around the world, but in the back of my car she was a rambling drug addict, a train wreck.”

At her peak in the 80s and early 90s, Whitney was the golden girl of the music industry.

But by the mid-90s her descent into a drug-addled hell saw the hits dry up – and her millions squandered on drugs.

It’s believed Whitney – who died last weekend from a suspected prescription drug overdose – blew a £63million fortune on her addiction.

Al, 53, first drove Whitney with her mentor Clive Davis at the height of her fame in the mid 80s.

He said: “She was just a sweet girl back then, happy to be out of New Jersey.

“I would pick her and Clive Davis up for red carpet events and ferry them back and forth. Whitney was so nice.”


But as the years rolled by and Al drove Whitney more and more, he says the transformation was astonishing.

He said: “Things took a turn for the worse when she met Bobby Brown in the early 90s.

“They started smoking crack in the limo. One time it got a little crazy back there, they were smoking and all of a sudden the limo is on fire.

“I pulled over and got the fire extinguisher and put the fire out.

“It turns out they were freebasing crack, it was like a crack lab in the back of the limo.

“There were little bags, pipes and spoons all over the place. They were using a little butane torch and lit up a bunch of cocktail napkins and the whole place went up. Whitney and Bobby had no clue what was going on, they were wasted.”

Freebasing is a street term for burning purified cocaine and inhaling the fumes.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2009, Whitney finally admitted for the first time that she was addicted to crack in the 1990s after marrying Brown.

Al says her drug habit was so bad that Whitney would ask him to drive her into LA’s ghetto areas to get her next fix.

“She’d ask me to take her to Compton, a rough area of LA, to get crack. It was like a bad rap video,” he said.

Whitney famously denied using crack when she was interviewed on TV in 2002, saying: “I make too much money to smoke crack. Crack is whack.”

But her voice was ruined by the effects of smoking crack pipes.

Al thought he’d seen it all after two decades driving Hollywood’s A-list.

But in 1999 he was horrified when he picked Whitney and Bobby up from their home in the Hollywood Hills.

“Their daughter Bobbi got into the limo with them and she had a bunch of dolls and was playing around. Then they would smoke crack right in front of her.

“Whitney would just say, ‘baby, mommy and daddy are doing adult things’. It wasn’t anything major to her.”

In another bizarre incident Al remembers a wild night in which Whitney and husband Bobby left a Hollywood party with another A-list soul diva – and ended up in a steamy threesome in the back.

Al said: “Her and Bobby were with another very famous singer after a party in Hollywood. I was taking them back to Whitney’s house in the hills.

“They were pretty wasted. I could see them through the divider glass and they started fooling around.

“It was only a 15-minute journey but they got straight to it.

“The woman was another big star at the time, so I was pretty shocked.”

Eventually, in 2003, Al decided to stop working for Whitney after her antics and crazy demands became too excessive.

“She just became too demanding,” he said. “Driving Whitney was never A to B, there was always a diversion, there was always a problem.

“She had turned into a monster, real arrogant. I told her to find another driver. I had plenty of work without her.”

He added: “It was tragic to watch a talent like Whitney Houston let herself get out of hand like she did over the years.

“She was bouncing off the walls and aged about 15-20 years really quickly.”


WHITNEY Houston’s chauffeur has revealed the tragic depths to which the superstar sank while hooked on crack cocaine.

Limo driver Al Bowman drove the singer for two decades.

And he witnessed first hand her spiral into a drug-fuelled meltdown.

He watched helplessly as Whitney and husband Bobby Brown became wasted in the back of his car almost daily, set fire to his limo while “free-basing” cocaine and even indulged in a threesome with an A-list soul singer after a wild night out.

Whitney even demanded that Al drive to rundown ghettos in LA so she could buy more drugs.

But most shockingly, Whitney’s drug abuse became so severe that she openly smoked crack in front of her young daughter Bobbi Kristina.

Al said: “I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was Whitney Houston in my limo, smoking crack with her six or seven-year-old daughter sat next to her. It was heart-breaking.

“I’ve driven some big stars over the years – Michael and Janet Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne, Motley Crew – but Whitney was by far the worst behaved.

“It was tragic to see. Here was this glamorous star, adored around the world, but in the back of my car she was a rambling drug addict, a train wreck.”

At her peak in the 80s and early 90s, Whitney was the golden girl of the music industry.

But by the mid-90s her descent into a drug-addled hell saw the hits dry up – and her millions squandered on drugs.

It’s believed Whitney – who died last weekend from a suspected prescription drug overdose – blew a £63million fortune on her addiction.

Al, 53, first drove Whitney with her mentor Clive Davis at the height of her fame in the mid 80s.

He said: “She was just a sweet girl back then, happy to be out of New Jersey.

“I would pick her and Clive Davis up for red carpet events and ferry them back and forth. Whitney was so nice.”


But as the years rolled by and Al drove Whitney more and more, he says the transformation was astonishing.

He said: “Things took a turn for the worse when she met Bobby Brown in the early 90s.

“They started smoking crack in the limo. One time it got a little crazy back there, they were smoking and all of a sudden the limo is on fire.

“I pulled over and got the fire extinguisher and put the fire out.

“It turns out they were freebasing crack, it was like a crack lab in the back of the limo.

“There were little bags, pipes and spoons all over the place. They were using a little butane torch and lit up a bunch of cocktail napkins and the whole place went up. Whitney and Bobby had no clue what was going on, they were wasted.”

Freebasing is a street term for burning purified cocaine and inhaling the fumes.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2009, Whitney finally admitted for the first time that she was addicted to crack in the 1990s after marrying Brown.

Al says her drug habit was so bad that Whitney would ask him to drive her into LA’s ghetto areas to get her next fix.

“She’d ask me to take her to Compton, a rough area of LA, to get crack. It was like a bad rap video,” he said.

Whitney famously denied using crack when she was interviewed on TV in 2002, saying: “I make too much money to smoke crack. Crack is whack.”

But her voice was ruined by the effects of smoking crack pipes.