Whitney and Mariah friends?
In 1990, Whitney Houston was at the height of her fame, already 5 years into her career she has taken the world by storm and was being labeled as the “voice of a generation”. However, that year a new fresh-faced star, with voice that could match Whitney’s released her self-titled debut album “Mariah Carey”. Mariah’s album shot to the top of the charts, and her and Whitney were now sharing the limelight. Throughout the 90s the media kept pitting these women against each other. They were both beautiful, had strong voices, created similar types of music, and worked with many similar producers. However, they kept denying any feud between them, as neither one of them ever talked to each other. Anytime an interviewer would ask Whitney what she thought about Mariah should would always label her as a “good singer”, and anytime Mariah would be asked about being compared to Whitney, she would always understand the comparison and say it would be ignorant of her to be upset about being compared to someone, as the public likes to categorize music artist. Whitney would go on topping the charts throughout the 90s, and Mariah would as well, but as time has passed by one producer, Babyface, would eventually lead to something many people were shocked about. Whitney had a very strong connection to Babyface and worked with him on 2 of her number on hits. Mariah also worked strongly with Babyface throughout her career and had a strong connection to him as well. Now just like we learned in class having two strong friendships will lead to more opportunities to meet, and more likely to close the triangle between them. This strong triadic closure began to happen and in 1998, two of the best-selling female artists of all time met, Whitney and Mariah.
The anticipation was high. Even Madonna was quoted on MTV saying she was shocked this collaboration between Whitney and Mariah was occurring. This collaboration occurred for the movie the Prince of Egypt, and they were set to record the song “When You Believe”. Whitney and Mariah were both tokened to sing this song, due to them both having a strong gospel background, and huge voices. However, getting them both to agree to record the song was a challenge. There were fears they would not agree to record, just because of the rumors of them having a feud. So, there was a plan. First to let Babyface agree to produce the song, as, Babyface, was very friendly to both of them, and to also trick them into agreeing. Whitney was told Mariah said she would record the song, and Mariah was told Whitney agreed without either of them actually agreeing. But unlike what many people thought would occur when they met, did not. In fact, they had an amazing time. Whitney and Mariah working together with Babyface, was labeled as one of their most favorite times in their careers. This triadic closure occurred due to Whitney and Mariah already having a close mutual friend in Babyface. They were able to create a strong connection with each other, and actually came out of this as friends. They spent a lot of time together.
After recording the song together, Whitney was quoted on Entertainment tonight as saying “they get along great and came out as really great friends”. They would go on performing on the Academy Awards together in 1999, hosting an MTV special together, and appearing alongside each other on Oprah. They became genuine friends, and grew to understand each other. This occurred due them being able to have a strong mutual connection to Babyface. This connection grew into a life long friendship that sadly ended in 2012. But once again, their friendship was proven to be strong, as Mariah spoke about Whitney’s death to millions worldwide on the BET awards and was quoted as tearfully saying “when I last saw Whitney, we were in London exactly one year ago, and for us it was business as usual. Laughter, commentary of the room, and jokes galore. And even then, folks were surprised seeing us next to each other clearly enjoying each other’s company, but we did, and we were. I miss my friend. I miss hearing her voice and laughter. But we will always have the music. We will always have the music, we will always have that voice we all fell in love with. She inspired us all. We will always have my friend Ms. Whitney Houston.”
Its very understandable, to see how these two women became great friends. Besides them being in the same field work, they had mutual connections to many people in the music industry, like Babyface. This would satisfy the Strong Triadic Closure Property, as they both had strong ties to Babyface, or other producers in the music industry, eventually there was a tie between them, and they became genuine friends.