Whitney

I was too young to understand what happened to Judy Garland. I'd see her on late night talk shows and was both entertained and disturbed watching her. She could be loopy in an unbridled way, yet obviously not all was well. I remember thinking why didn't all those powerful people around her monitor her more closely and stop feeding her those uppers to keep her working. Just from a business stand point it made sense.
Now, reading the dozens of responses by famous, powerful people, you have to wonder if things might have turned out differently for Whitney if any of them had devoted more time and effort to pushing her to get straight. In sports, teams literally hire someone to be a constant companion to a star who has substance abuse problems, like baseballer Josh Hamilton. They're protecting their investment. Couldn't her record company have done the same? Or her family? If that's what it takes and you have to do it year after year, you do it. Though her career was much shorter, Amy Winehouse falls into the same category. It's easy to say people must take responsibility for their own lives, but how cold is that when you can see someone unraveling, someone who has lost control? We make jokes about Sheen, Lohan, Hasselhoff and so many others. Sickness is not a choice. Whitney Houston was ill. Her body finally wore down. It never should have gotten that far.