I wouldn't normally think of conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly as being someone personally affected by the death of a pop singer, but during Monday's broadcast of his Fox News show, The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly passionately spoke out about Whitney Houston. "What happened to Whitney Houston is awful," he said. "I said a prayer for her last night."

Of course, he also said she was a drug addict who was hell-bent on destroying herself, so I'm not really sure what he prayed for. Maybe that he'd find a way to make her death into a political issue for his show?

In O'Reilly's "Reality Check" segment, he addressed statements made by Tony Bennett that drugs should be legalized, pointing out that the drugs Houston were allegedly taking at the time of her death were in fact legal, prescribed medications. O'Reilly didn't stop there, though -- he went on to accuse Houston of being an addict, said that "everyone knew it," and went on to say:

Nobody takes drugs for that long if they want to stay on the planet. (...) She follows in the footsteps of Elvis, Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson, and scores of other entertainment figures. The hard truth is that some people will always want to destroy themselves, and there’s nothing society can do about it.

Here's the video, if you'd like to see the entire thing:



I know O'Reilly's entire shtick is about addressing controversial topics, but I'm pretty shocked that he'd come right out and say that Whitney Houston somehow wanted to kill herself. I mean, it hasn't even been a week since she died, for god's sake -- can you even imagine how it feels for her family to hear this kind of thing? For her daughter?

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Besides, everything he's talking about is conjecture. I think we can all agree that it seems likely that Whitney Houston was dealing with some level of substance abuse issues, but none of us can know what her exact situation was. Was she an addict? Maybe, but even if she was, addiction has nothing to do with morality or strength of character. Saying Houston wanted to kill herself because she was an addict is a horrible misunderstanding of how drug dependance and compulsive behavior works.

One of the best definitions I've read about addiction (and believe me, I know a thing or two about it) is that it's continued involvement with a substance or activity despite the negative consequences associated with it. People aren't necessarily addicts because they want to kill themselves, they're addicts because they're addicted.

Since the chain of events led to Houston's death in the Beverly Hilton Hotel last Saturday are largely unknown at this point, for O'Reilly to state as fact that she wanted to kill herself is an offense to her memory and to her loved ones. Then again, who can expect anything less from his show? I suppose his words were intended to make us think about the seriousness of drug addiction. Instead, I'm just focused on how callous and ignorant these comments are.

What do you think about Bill O'Reilly's statements regarding Whitney Houston?



Image via Fox News