Russian fans of U.S. pop star Whitney Houston, who died on Saturday evening at the age of 48, pay tribute to the late singer by laying flowers near the U.S Embassy in Moscow and preparing for a mourning reception.
The news about Houston’s death hit the world’s headlines and social networks late on Saturday, making Houston's name the Twitter’s global trend.
An Internet user, Masha Kashina, wrote on her twitter account: “Forever and ever you'll stay in my heart and I will always love you.”
“It is very hard to say goodbye to a star like Whitney Houston. I and my sister grew up with her songs. No one can know what made her leave us so early... RIP,” a Russian fan nicknamed Helen wrote on Facebook.
Several hours after the world’s media announced Houston’s death, her Russian fans started bringing flowers and photos to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, like in 2009 when Michael Jackson’s death triggered a similar reaction with fan clubs staging flash mobs and mourning parties, commemorating the ‘king of pop.’
Houston’s fan community is organizing a mourning reception in Moscow, the Russian tabloid web site Life News reported.
A famous Russian singer Larisa Dolina told the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Sunday that “it is terrible when people like that leave,” adding that no one would ever sing like Whitney.
According to the preliminary information, a psychoactive drug Xanax, which is used to treat anxiety and panic attacks, could have caused the death after being mixed with alcohol at the pre-Grammy party which Whitney attended several hours before, the TMZ.com celebrity news web site reported on Monday.
An autopsy on singer's body has already been completed but the official cause of death will not be known for about another eight weeks, after the toxicology tests are carried out, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office told the TMZ web site.
The date and the venue of the pop icon’s funeral are yet to be announced.
Houston is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as “the most awarded female artist of all time.” During her singing career, which started when she was 11, Houston won six Grammy Awards, 15 Billboard Music Awards, 21 American Music Awards, two Emmy Awards, and many other music prizes.
She was also known as an actress, particularly for starring opposite Kevin Costner in the 1992 box-office smash The Bodyguard. Her song from the movie, I Will Always Love You, was included into the U.S. Top Ten wedding songs, while in Britain it was named among the ten most popular funeral songs.
