How tragic Whitney Houston really looked - 11 missing teeth, sewn on wig and secret scars
Whitney Houston was one of pop's most sensational beauties, but decades of drink and drug abuse ravaged her looks
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One of the great beauties of pop, Whitney Houston's luminous looks were as captivating as her legendary voice.
But by the time Whitney - who would have been 57 today - died eight years ago, decades of drink and drug abuse had ravaged her once flawless voice and body.
Found face down in the bathtub at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles on February 11, 2012, the tragic star was unrecognisable from fresh-faced singer and actress who had entranced audiences.
Of course, the damage wasn't just on the outside. According to The Bodyguard star's grim autopsy report, she had heart disease so advanced that one artery was 60 per cent blocked.
The final act of the tragedy unfolded when Whitney arrived in LA a week ahead of the Grammys.
She raised concerns the night before the awards with her erratic behaviour, dishevelled appearance and mismatched clothes.
Then just hours before her death, she told her assistant she had a sore throat and was going to take a bath before Clive Davis' pre-Grammys party.
But at 3:35pm, Whitney's assistant found her lying lifeless in about 13 inches of scalding hot water that insiders said could have been as hot as 66°C when she died.
Swathes of skin had been burned off her back, according to the autopsy report, causing 'skin slippage' on her legs.
A needle mark was noted on her inner left elbow along with 'the outlines of bilateral breast prosthesis' and scars from breast implants.
Bizarrely, a wig was found to have been sewn onto her existing hair, which was in lustrous condition.
Her eyebrows were 'sparse', the coroner noted, but her hair was still full, black and wavy with 'no balding'.
Her teeth, however, were in a bad way with 11 of her front ones missing, reportedly lost during marathon crack cocaine binges.
Tina Brown, the sister of Whitney's ex-husband Bobby Brown, claimed Whitney knocked her teeth out in binges that went on for days.
“She loses them in the house and when she’s out on drug binges,” she said in 2006.
“They cost $6000 and the dentist has to keep FedEx’ing her a new set," she added.
Whitney hid her dire dental issues by wearing a 'maxillary dental prosthesis', the report found.
Her official cause of death was given as accidental drowning contributed to by heart disease and cocaine use.
MirrorCeleb