R&B singer Houston is recuperating after trying to gouge his eye out in an attempt to exorcise the devil.
Houston, born Houston Summers IV, was overseas for a series of performances when he “found himself in the midst of a spiritual battle against the evil that runs rampant in the entertainment industry.”
Earlier reports said that Houston tried to take his life by jumping from a London hotel window, but he maintains that he was not trying to kill himself. He is reportedly just having trouble dealing with the temptations that go along with fame.
“I went to check on him before going to bed and I saw blood on the floor,” Houston’s bodyguard, Marco Powell, said in a statement. “Houston was lying on his bed with a towel over his face and I removed the towel to find his eye hanging out. He said he had to get the devil off of his back and that’s the only way he could kill the devil.”
Houston’s trouble with popularity struck a chord with rapper Bushwick Bill (of the Geto Boys), who was involved in a similar incident in 1991. A severely intoxicated Bill forced his girlfriend to assist him in a suicide attempt. She shot him in the eye, but he miraculously survived.
“Fame will make you crazy,” Bill’s statement said. “I want Houston to know that he is in my prayers, and that I will ask God to give him peace of mind and peace of heart, and I hope his eye heals as well as his mind and his emotions.”