“A lot of what’s in the film is something she and I actually experienced,” reveals David Roberts.
David Roberts protected Whitney Houston as a bodyguard from 1988 to 1995. Now the 73-year-old is releasing his own book on February 4, 2025 about his time together with the singer: “Protecting Whitney”. On the occasion, he revealed in an interview how close the two actually were.
“If you cross this line, you lose your objectivity”
Roberts would have been willing to “give up everything” for Houston. However, that was only the case for a brief moment when the “Greatest Love Of All” interpreter “lovingly laid her head on his shoulder” one evening. But the bodyguard took his job seriously and did not allow any deeper feelings for the artist. He revealed this in an interview with the Daily Mail on December 28th.
“As a bodyguard, I was absolutely focused on protecting them. When you cross that line, you lose your objectivity, and that makes it dangerous for the person you’re protecting,” Roberts explained further in the conversation. In addition to being Houston’s bodyguard, he was also the inspiration for Kevin Costner’s character, Frank Farmer, in the film Bodyguard. In the thriller romance, Frank Farmer and Rachel Marron (played by Houston) couldn’t be together because of their jobs.
The bodyguard continued to tell the Daily Mail: “A lot of what is in the film, she and I actually experienced. Small details, like the character of Rachel Marron holding on to the back of his shirt to escape the crowd of fans. That’s how we did it.”
Houston sent him a message of love
Houston also seemed to enjoy Robert’s presence. According to his own statement, she wrote him a note with the words “I will love you always.” It was only years later that her hit “I Will Always Love You” was created. “It was on a Post-it note that she slid under the door of my room at the Regency Hotel in Hong Kong in 1988,” Roberts said. “I still have it – it’s faded a bit over time, but it’s still valuable to me.”
“I couldn’t protect her from herself.”
For Roberts, Houston was “one of the most beautiful women” he had ever met. He described the American as “graceful, shy, introverted, well-mannered.” The fact that she died in February 2012 is still a tragedy for the bodyguard. The soul singer drowned in a bathtub. She allegedly had a mixture of alcohol, medication and drugs in her blood.
Says the bodyguard: “I was hired to protect her life and I protected her as best as I could. But I couldn’t protect her from herself.”