Whitney Houston’s co-star from the 1992 film The Bodyguard, Kevin Costner, is set to speak at the late singer’s funeral today.
Record label boss and the man who signed her, Clive Davis, will also speak and Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder will sing at the service at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, where Houston sang as a child.
Whitney Houston’s funeral will be streamed live on the internet. The Associated Press have reportedly struck a deal with the late singer’s publicist, Kristen Foster, which will allow them to film the ceremony and broadcast it online, with the event also set to be made available to broadcasters via satellite.
Houston’s funeral will take place today (Saturday, February 18) at 5pm (GMT), which is 12pm (EST). The singer’s body was flown from California to Newark on Monday (February 13) and was driven to the funeral home in a gold hearse.
Houston passed away last Saturday (February 11) at the age of 48, after she was discovered underwater and unconscious in a bath at a hotel in Beverly Hills. Though it has been widely reported that she died as a result of an overdose of Xanax and other prescription drugs mixed with alcohol, police have said it may take up to eight weeks for her cause of death to be formally confirmed.
A police spokesman has said that although prescription drugs were present in the singer’s room, reports that they were involved in her death were still only “rumours and speculation”.
by Sel Hurst
