Is ‘Beauty’ Based on a True Story? How Whitney Houston Inspired the Netflix Movie

Beauty on Netflix, which began streaming today, is not a Whitney Houston biopic. But it’s also not not a Whitney Houston biopic. Put another way, though the names have been changed, anyone who knows Houston’s story will see how this Netflix drama was inspired by the singer’s early years.

Written by Lena Waithe, and directed by Andrew Dosunmu, this movie follows a young singer in the ’80s named Beauty (played by Gracie Marie Bradley) who has recently been offered an album deal with a music studio. While her entire family is invested in her career, Beauty relies most heavily on her best friend and lover, Jasmine. Though the two young women love each other, they know they must keep their relationship a secret from the public, as Beauty’s singing career begins to take off.

There is no pre-movie caption stating that Beauty is based on a true story, nor is there a post-movie montage of IRL footage, but if you know the story of Whitney Houston and Robyn Crawford, and if you know Waithe’s relationship with the singer, you know that Beauty is at least in part inspired by a true story.

Is Netflix’s Beauty based on a true story?

Yes and no. Beauty is certainly inspired by the true story of Whitney Houston and Robyn Crawford, although it does not use any names of real-life people for its characters. However, even though the character names have been changed, it’s clear that writer Lena Waithe—a lifelong fan of Houston’s—drew inspiration from the singer’s life, and most especially her relationship with Robyn Crawford.

In the movie, a young Beauty is on the verge of stardom, after being taught to sing by her mother (played by Niecy Nash), just as Whitney Houston was taught to sing by her mother, Cissy Houston. Like Cissy, who was a was a member of the group the Sweet Inspirations, Beauty’s mother had a singing career that ultimately never led to fame or fortune, and perhaps as a result, she is extra tough on her daughter. Whitney Houston’s relationship with her father, John Russell Houston, is also reflected in the movie. In real life, Houston’s father sued his own daughter in 2003, claiming that she never paid him what she owed his company for help negotiated a contract deal. Beauty hints at this tension by having Beauty’s father (played by Giancarlo Esposito) accuse Beauty of owing him money, while he is in the hospital recovering from a heart attack. Whitney Houston’s siblings—a full brother, Michael, and a half-brother, Gary— also have counterparts in Beauty, and they are named, not so subtly, Abel (played by Kyle Bary) and Cain (played by Michael Ward).

But the biggest clue that Beauty is based on Whitney Houston’s life is Beauty’s romantic relationship with a woman that she tells the world is just a close friend, Jasmine (played by Aleyse Shannon). Jasmine is a clear stand-in for Robyn Crawford, Houston’s best friend and assistant who was often seen by Houston’s side throughout her career and was rumored to be Houston’s girlfriend. Though both publicly denied these rumors, later, Crawford herself said in her memoir that she did have a brief sexual relationship with Houston, but that Houston ended it, for fear of being caught.

Waithe, who is openly gay, has said that Crawford was an inspiration for her, and even interviewed Crawford for Oprah Daily in 2019. In that interview, Crawford told Waithe, “You name it, we did it. We were intimate with all of it. And the physical part was like a river. We both dived in, and there was goodness there. But the big picture was always where she was going. And our friendship was the foundation.” It’s easy to see both how this conversation, and how Crawford’s memoir—which was what the above interview was promoting—inspired Waithe to write Beauty.

In the movie, Beauty and her friend Jasmine are together as romantic partners, much to her family’s disapproval. Beauty’s half-brother Cain, in particular, calls Jasmine “evil,” echoing something Houston’s real-life half-brother, Gary Houston, said in the 2018 documentary Whitney, calling his sister’s relationship with Crawford “evil.” It seems likely that Houston’s living family, including Gary, who is 64, would not have approved of the version of Houston’s life that Waithe wanted to tell. Perhaps that’s why Beauty is not officially about Whitney Houston. But it’s easy enough to connect the dots, and see it for the tragic love story that it is—the story of Whitney Houston and Robyn Crawford.