The anticipation was palpable on the morning of Clive Davis’s star-studded pre-Grammys gala, an event renowned as the weekend’s most sought-after ticket. Hosted by the iconic music producer at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, it promised an unforgettable night of entertainment.

Among the performers was R&B sensation Brandy Norwood, who, in 1998, captured the top spot on the charts for 13 weeks with her duet alongside Monica on the smash hit “The Boy Is Mine.” Now, 14 years later, she was set to reunite with Monica for their latest collaboration, a fresh track titled “It All Belongs To Me.”

However, on the morning of February 11, 2012, Brandy awoke with an unsettling sensation—a “hot, radiating itch” in her throat, as she later described.

This feeling was unlike anything she had experienced before.

“I wasn’t hoarse, nor was my voice unusually raspy,” she reflects in her memoir, “Phases: A Memoir,” released on March 31. “It was a peculiar sensation, as though someone had slowly dragged a safety pin up my esophagus.”

This unnerving feeling would soon take on a deeper, more haunting significance.

Brandy became a teen singing and acting sensation in the mid-1990s, known for her powerful vocal range and intricate riffs.

As a child, her idol was Whitney Houston. And as a star in her own right, the pair became extremely close. Houston even acted as her mentee’s real-life fairy godmother when she cast her in the 1997 musical remake of Cinderella.

As a child, Brandy’s idol was Whitney Houston

Houston acted as her mentee’s real-life fairy godmother when she cast her in the film, Cinderella

Houston and Brandy pictured at the premier of the 1997 musical remake of Cinderella

But in the years since, while Brandy had gone on to serve as a judge on the first season of America’s Got Talent and taken part in Dancing with the Stars, Houston had experienced a series of well-publicized setbacks, including a doomed marriage to Bobby Brown, and ongoing battles with drugs.

In 2000, Houston was fired from a planned performance at the Academy Awards because of her erratic behavior during rehearsals.

Two years later the singer – looking alarmingly thin – admitted to having used alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and pills during an interview with Diane Sawyer. But she insisted her troubles were all in the past.

That proved to be a tragic lie as, by 2009, in what would be one of her final interviews, she told Oprah Winfrey that drug use had been an everyday thing for her since the mid-1990s.

She had been to rehab at least three times – in 2004, 2005 and 2011 – but struggled to stay sober.

So when she appeared ‘like a chaotic meteor’ at Brandy’s rehearsals on February 11, the day before that Grammy performance, the press were understandably eager to capture her every move.

‘Whitney came bouncing – no, exploding – onto the that stage,’ writes Brandy, ‘trailing laughter, water and the unmistakable scent of trouble. Her clothes clung to her damply, evidence of an impulsive swim, and she moved with the unpredictable rhythm of someone no lingered tethered to the room.

‘”Baby girl!” she called out to me. “Baby girl!”‘

Houston experienced a series of well-publicized setbacks, including a doomed marriage to Bobby Brown, and ongoing battles with drugs

Houston with Clive Davis before his legendary pre-Grammy party in 2007

‘Whitney appeared to be under the influence, and it was tough to be in a room crawling with strangers whispering and judging her,’ writes Brandy

‘”I had to come see my babies! Y’all are gonna kill it,” she said with genuine excitement.’

Monica and Brandy ran through The Boy is Mine – the song that had won them a Grammy all those years ago before Houston flashed a quick thumbs up and left as quickly as she’d come.

Brandy continues: ‘About an hour or so later, Whitney returned to the ballroom – now with her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, by her side.

‘Whitney appeared to be under the influence, and it was tough to be in a room crawling with strangers whispering and judging her. Whitney was becoming the story, and humiliation climbed up my spine like English ivy climbing a tree.’

As the younger singers finished an interview, Houston quietly sidled up to Brandy and leaned in close.

‘This is for you,’ she whispered, as she pressed a crumpled note written on hotel stationery into her palm.

‘Then she planted a kiss on my cheek so tender it nearly fractured the wall I put up to shield my emotions from the watching cameras.’

Fans have long speculated what the mysterious note might have said, but Brandy is remaining loyal to her beloved mentor by keeping its contents private.

She explains in her memoir: ‘I feel the world’s longing to know what Whitney wrote to me. I know that people weave their own stories from my silence. But I hope you can understand – after giving so much of ourselves to the world, I want to keep some small piece of our bond untouched by the world. I’ve kept the paper folded away, a reminder that the bond we had was achingly, beautifully real.’

However, she does provide an insight into Houston’s frame of mind that night, as they talked on the phone for three long hours.

‘The instant I got home, I called her, uncertainty pulsing through me about which version of Whitney would answer,’ she writes, ‘the nurturing maternal figure who had guided me through Cinderella or the unpredictable force I’d glimpsed today.’

When Houston picked up, she told her friend: ‘I was hoping you’d call. You alone? We need to talk, just us.’

They reminisced, laughed, cried and prayed together.

Brandy talked about her career – about the crushing pressure to succeed and her fears that she was becoming a relic, while her mentor comforted and reassured her.

Brandy went on to serve as a judge on the first season of America’s Got Talent and took part in Dancing with the Star (photographed at the Billboard Music Awards in 2020)

Brandy (left) and Monica appear on The Tonight Show in 2025

‘There were flashes of the old Whitney in that conversation,’ she writes, ‘glimpses of light breaking through.

‘I heard it in her raspy laugh that erupted unexpectedly like sunshine after rain, in the way she scattered ‘baby’ and ‘sweetie’ throughout her sentences like musical notes, in how she returned every topic – no matter how dark – back to faith with the certainty of a compass finding true north.

‘She spoke of getting back in the studio, or the redemption waiting just around the corner with Sparkle, the long-delayed remake of the 1976 film she’d put on the backburner after we lost Aaliyah, who she’d handpicked for the lead role.’

They talked about Houston’s ‘tumultuous years’ in the past, but as they wound down their phone call this time, the star promised her friend: ‘I’m gonna be better. You’ll see. This is just a season, not the whole story.’

Brandy writes: ‘I couldn’t have known then that her words were both prophecy and farewell.’

Waking up the next morning with a burning throat, she managed to secure an emergency appointment with the doctor, but was told there was nothing wrong with her.

Then, as she approached the Beverly Hilton to prepare for the event, it was as if the world stopped.

‘The air started to change as we got closer to the hotel,’ she writes. ‘It got thicker, heavier. The clouds nudged the sun out of view, turning the afternoon sky into a vast expanse of darkening gray. It was eerie. I looked back down at my phone screen. It was 3.45pm.

‘The fire in my throat traveled down to the pit of my gut.’

When she arrived at the hotel, it was chaos, with paramedics everywhere.

‘Hurry up! Hurry up! She’s not breathing!’ one shouted.

Confused, and focused on her performance later that day, Brandy rushed into a waiting elevator to her room.

Moments later, as her make-up artist got to work, her phone rang.

‘Baby?’ her mother said. ‘Whitney’s gone, baby. She’s gone.’

The singer’s assistant had found her unresponsive in the bathtub at around 3.35pm. She was pronounced dead 20 minutes later. Her cause of death was accidental drowning, with contributing factors including coronary artery disease and cocaine use. She was 48 years old.

The singer’s cause of death was accidental drowning, with contributing factors including coronary artery disease and cocaine use – she was just 48

A coroner’s van leaves the Beverly Hilton Hotel with Whitney Houston’s body

Fans placed flowers and notes at a memorial outside the Beverly Hilton Hotel for Houston

Houston’s funeral took place in Newark, New Jersey, On February 11, 2012

‘I felt my body go limp,’ writes Brandy, ‘then I fell to the floor, convulsing with sobs. I could faintly make out the sound of my mom on the receiver trying her hardest to soothe me through the phone.’

Heartbroken, she was shocked when she learned that the gala – ‘obscenely, incomprehensibly, would proceed as planned.’

It all felt so wrong, she writes, sitting there in a gown and make-up celebrating.

‘The room swirled around me in a macabre carnival of industry faces – offering condolences with compassionate expressions one second, clinking champagne glasses and dancing to Pitbull the next,’ she writes.

‘I just talked to her yesterday,’ I whispered into Monica’s shoulder. ‘She was going to be better. She promised.’

Phases: A Memoir by Brandy is published by Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins, on March 31.