Whitney Houston’s Former Bodyguard Reveals Untold Stories in New Memoir

Whitney Houston defied the portrait of the self-absorbed pop star: She was smart, friendly and generous, reveals David Roberts — the former Scotland Yard police officer who protected her and served as inspiration for Kevin Costner’s character in “The Bodyguard!”

Waiting for the legendary singer at London’s Heathrow Airport in April 1988, she was not at all what Roberts figured she’d be. “I was so impressed,” he recalls of meeting the star. “I was not expecting a shy, articulate, highly intelligent young woman with the voice of an angel.”

Roberts shares the story of their close friendship in the new book “Protecting Whitney: The Memoir of Her Bodyguard.” At the height of Whitney’s career, Roberts guarded her against delusional fans, stalkers and other people who wanted to harm her — and witnessed how others close to her wanted to cash in on her goodness.

“My role was to help avoid people taking advantage of her generosity,” Roberts explains. “She was too generous. People waited until we were on tour to get married because Whitney would pay for everything. She was generous with her heart, her money and her love for everyone. It didn’t serve her well.”

His job got much harder when Whitney tied the knot in 1992 with R&B singer Bobby Brown, who wasn’t thrilled to have the bodyguard around.

“Mr. Brown sort of tolerated me because Whitney wanted him to,” Roberts, now 73, remembers. “She liked the way I looked after her and he loved her. But we were very different people.”

Sadly, Roberts witnessed Whitney’s downward spiral, confiding, “In my presence, never did I see her take or imbibe any drug beyond a cigarette or a bottle of Heineken. That was her drug.”

But after Whitney overdosed on the set of “Waiting to Exhale” in 1995 and her doctor warned she was risking her singing voice, Roberts penned a letter to the singer’s lawyers that members of her entourage were providing her with drugs.

One week later, Roberts was fired — and he never got to say goodbye to his close friend. “Metaphorically speaking, I took that bullet,” the bodyguard says. “I put my association on the line, and I lost. For that failure, I will always feel I let her down.”

He was still angry when he learned Whitney drowned at age 48 in 2012. “She should still be here,” Roberts says. “We should be sitting here listening to her music today.”