Clutch Magazine: Exploiting Whitney Houston's Death and Dealing With Personal "Sex Scandals"

The Snob has two stories up for Clutch Magazine this week -- a piece on how to handle yourself if you find you're embroiled in a "sexy" photo scandal and how uncomfortable the situation is getting with Whitney Houston's surviving family members. Did you catch the tribute to Whitney Houston at the Billboard Music Awards Sunday night? But did you also catch all the drama between Houston's daughter Bobbi Kristina and her sister-in-law Pat Houston? Well, I guess that was unavoidable. Pat does have a reality show to sell.

From Clutch:

While every family is free to grieve in whatever way they feel fit, there’s something ghoulish about grief via reality TV.

The Houston family’s sudden move from the background in Whitney’s life to the limelight has shades of the most recent season of Bravo’s Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. The series went morbid late last year in the aftermath of cast member Taylor Armstrong’s husband’s suicide. Armstrong, who was a battered spouse, rounded out her public grief with a book tour.

And the Houston family has had their reputations rocked by reality TV before with the image tarnishing embarrassment that was Being Bobby Brown. The 2005 Bravo network show chronicled Houston’s then husband Bobby Brown and his children’s lives with a seemingly out-of-it Houston along for the ride. While highly rated, the show only lasted one season after Houston refused to appear in any more episodes.

Maybe the show will be a loving, comical, and career-boosting tribute, akin to what Braxton Family Values has been for singer Toni Braxton and her loving, bickering, then loving again sisters. But something about it makes me not want to trust it. Something about how for months since Houston’s death someone within the family has routinely leaked gossip to sites like TMZ about Houston’s mother Cissy’s reactions and Bobbi Kristina’s personal life. Houston’s death knocked down that last remaining wall of what was left of her personal life and made it public.

Read the full post at Clutch Magazine Online.