AEST 00:00, Sun Feb 12 2012
With more than 170 million combined album, singles and videos sold worldwide, Whitney Houston was clearly a true pop icon.
The Grammy Award winning singer and actress, who was most successful during the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, starred in a number of hit movies including The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale and influenced generations of young singers.
Despite her success, she had a history of drug and alcohol use and once said "The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy."
We look at her life in pictures and one of her final interviews about her upcoming movie Sparkle.
A young Whitney with her mother Cissy Houston.