George Rose/Getty ImagesA voice of a generation has been silenced too soon.
Whitney Houston, the soaring singer whose Grammy-winning, chart-topping career was derailed by drug abuse and a troubled personal life, including a tumultuous marriage to R&B star Bobby Brown, has died at age 48.
The news was confirmed to E! News by the singer's publicist, Kristen Foster. No further details were immediately available.
MORE: News, photos and clips of the late singer
Last October, Houston's camp blamed exhaustion on a tiff with a flight attendant during a trip to Detroit. The incident came a few months after Houston confirmed she was participating in an outpatient rehab program for drugs and alcohol.
Also last year, the singer's rep batted down a report the star was battling emphysema, a lung disease.
Long believed to have a substance-abuse problem, Houston was arrested for marijuana possession in 2000. A year later, her gaunt appearance at a concert marking Michael Jackson's 30th year in show business fueled a rumor, just days after 9/11, that she had fatally overdosed.
In 2002, a very-much alive Houston told ABC News' Diane Sawyer that, yes, she had done drugs: alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and prescription drugs. She had "partied," she said, and the party was over.
"I am not self destructive," Houston said at the time. "I'm a person who has life, and wants to live."
Houston's survivors include Bobbi Kristina Brown, her 18-year-old daughter with Brown, whom she divorced in 2007.
(Orignally published at 5:14 p.m. PT on Feb. 11, 2012.)
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