Top Secret Love: Details Of Whitney Houston's Turbulent Lesbian Affair With Assistant Exposed In New Tell-All

Before she succumbed to a drug overdose and accidental drowning, Whitney Houston was perhaps best known for her tumultuous relationship with former husband Bobby Brown. But according to biographer Ian Halperin, the author of Whitney & Bobbi Kristina: The Deadly Price of Fame, the late singer shared a top-secret lesbian love affair with her lifelong best friend and later assistant, Robyn Crawford.

Houston met Crawford while working as a camp counselor in between recording sessions when she was just 16. Immediately, the singer's mom Cissy did not approve of the close friendship, Halperin writes.

When fellow teens sensed the friendship could be something more and made a comment, she went on the defensive. In one incident, a student called Houston a "d*ke," prompting her to fly into a rage. "Whitney had this girl pinned up to the wall…'If I ever hear you spreading gossip about me, it'll be the last time you ever do,' Whitney warned her,'" a childhood friend told Halperin.

In the mid-80s, Crawford moved into Houston's apartment in New Jersey's Mendham Township. The songstress calmed her disapproving mother down with a luxury condo, the author claims.

Perhaps to stop rumors, Houston told Ebony magazine she was dating "It" actor Eddie Murphy in 1988. After the singer's 2011 death, Murphy confessed he had never dated her.

When Halperin asked Houston's father John directly about the lesbian rumors, he didn't deny them. "I don't ask my daughter what goes on in her bedroom," he said. He admitted the singer's inner circle pleaded with her to spend less time with Crawford.

By 1991, the pair's relationship had turned violent. The star's former bodyguard Kevin Ammons told Halperin he once witnessed Crawford grabbing her rumored lover's arm screaming, 'Don't ever disrespect me like that,' after she chatted with rapper MC Hammer. After Crawford slapped Houston, mom Cissy allegedly got involved. "I'll kill you, you stupid b*tch!" Ammons claimed Cissy told Crawford, who was working as Houston's assistant by that time.

While on tour in 1991, the two women reportedly shared a hotel room.

An L.A. waiter told the reporter he saw Houston locking lips with another woman, likely Crawford, at Chasen's restaurant in the early 90s. "I was taken by surprise when I found them kissing," he recalled. "I'm sure they knew I saw them, but it seemed as if they didn't care."

After Houston married Bobby Brown in the summer of 1992, Houston's former bodyguard said Crawford threatened to tell all about her relationship with the singer. Houston's father allegedly offered the bodyguard $6,000 to keep Crawford quiet.

Love triangle? The next year, Brown, Houston and Crawford allegedly got into a "physical altercation" at New York's Peninsula Hotel, a security guard told biographer Jeffrey Bowman.

It seems Houston cut off all professional relations with Crawford in 2000. "In May, Crawford resigned from Houston's New Jersey-based company, Nippy Inc., and moved to Los Angeles," Us Weekly reported that year, according to Halperin.