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| Brandy holding her brother down. |
A poignant image of Ray J standing outside the Beverly Hilton hotel with his head in his hands was released yesterday evening.The R&B star was visibly distraught as he tried to come to terms with the tragic death of his on-off girlfriend Whitney Houston, which happened in a room in the Los Angeles hotel yesterday afternoon. According to TMZ, police turned Ray J away from the scene after he raced over from his home as soon as he learned the devastating news. 31-year-old Ray J sought solace in the arms of his sister Brandy, and was seen being comforted by the singer as they attended a pre-Grammys Midnight Brunch thrown by musician Ne-Yo. While Ray J hid his face with a hood and sunglasses, he still stepped out following Whitney’s sudden death because the annual party was also honouring Brandy’s 33rd birthday. Ray J kept an arm around his sister as he lowered his head, dressed in jeans and a hoodie.
Meanwhile Brandy seemed somber as she comforted her brother, cracking a faint smile when she was presented with a birthday cake topped off with sparklers. The event took place at the Supperclub in Hollywood, and saw Carmen Electra, Elijah Kelley, Pia Toscano and KeKe Palmer. Will.i.am and Estelle were also in attendance at the event, while many guests including Shaggy and J.Cole reportedly opted to skip the red carpet and head straight inside. It has been reported by Billboard that the party saw its attendees dance and sing along to Whitney’s classic hits throughout the night, which blasted through the speakers as a tribute to the memory of the pop diva. Ne-Yo told the website: ‘The wonderful thing about Whitney Houston was she was the kind of person that you could not keep down. She went through bumps and bruises in her career, in her life, whatever the case may be.‘That's human, everybody goes through it, but it's not about the fall - it's about the get back up. That's what Whitney Houston was about, the get-back-up. ‘So even in this situation she wouldn't want us to be sad right now, she would want us to celebrate the great thing that her life was as well, as opposed to mourning her death.’Whitney drowned alone in a bathtub having accidentally overdosed on a cocktail of prescription drugs and alcohol after two back-to-back evenings of out-of-control binges, it has been claimed. The star was found dead under the water by her bodyguard in a luxury hotel suite said to have been littered with bottles of prescription pills. She was 48.
Ray J mentioned 'missed calls' from Miss Houston, according to the International Business Times, adding: 'We all gotta live with that.'Paramedics battled to revive the singer but she was pronounced dead at 3.55pm yesterday afternoon, hours before she had been due to perform at a pre-Grammys party being held by Clive Davis at the hotel where she died. At first it was thought that Ray J had found Whitney’s body but a statement was later released by his spokesman saying 'he was nowhere near the scene but no less distraught'.
According to reports on gather.com moments before the news broke, Ray J was seen trying to console Whitney’s 18-year-old daughter Bobbi Kristina, who was screaming, in the lobby of the hotel.
The singer/reality TV star and Whitney Houston dated between 2007 and 2009 but it was believed they had recently picked up their romance after being spotted at an LA restaurant.
By Iona Kirby
