The real-life former bodyguard of Whitney Houston has publicly addressed the nature of his relationship with the late singer. Former policeman David Roberts, a 73-year-old Welshman, worked as a close protection officer for Houston from 1988 until 1995, when she was one of the biggest stars on the planet.
![[BOOK: Protecting Whitney, David Roberts. HANDOUT.]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_233840516-dbc9.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Their bond in part inspired her huge 1992 movie The Bodyguard, in which Kevin Costner played bodyguard Frank Farmer to Houston’s musical chart-topper Rachel Marron. Roberts, who has written a memoir – Protecting Whitney: The Memoir of Her Bodyguard – revealed that there was a time he was tempted to ‘give up everything’ and cross the line from professional to personal relationship, if he had had the chance, when the How Will I Know singer ‘affectionately’ laid her head on his shoulder.
![[Editorial use only. No book cover usage. Mandatory Credit: Photo by Warner Br/Everett/Shutterstock (1604865a) Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston 'The Bodyguard' Film - 1992]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_234567417-ad59-e1735580627513.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
However, he confirms there was no romantic element to their relationship in the end, unlike in the movie. ‘As a close protection officer, I was absolutely focused on keeping her safe. If you cross that line, you lose your objectivity and that makes it dangerous for the person you’re protecting,’ he told the Daily Mail.
![[USA: Whitney Houston]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-525201370.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=394)
‘That was why Frank Farmer and Rachel Marron couldn’t be together – he crossed the line and that was the end of him in the capacity of what he was employed to do,’ he added of the film’s emotional climax where the lovers part ways. Roberts also says that ‘much of what was contained in the film, she and I actually lived through’.
![[Whitney Houston]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-138977171.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
