The queen of Grammys has unexpectadly died- RIP!

US singer and actress Whitney Houston has died in Los Angeles, aged 48. We look back at the rise and tragic fall of a superstar.

For the golden girl of the music industry from the mid-80s to the late 90s, Whitney Houston's decline, when it came, was spectacular.

Her once serene image, matched by her majestic voice, was shattered by drug use in her later career and has come to be seen as a cautionary tale.
Houston was born with unusually good musical genes. She was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick, and the goddaughter of Aretha Franklin.
From the age of five, young Houston was singing gospel songs in the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey.
She spent her youth singing backing vocals to such artists as Chaka Khan, Lou Rawls and her own mother.
She was soon spotted in a Manhattan night club by the head of Arista Records, Clive Davis, and, at the age of 19, was signed up virtually on the spot.