L.A. Reid Recalls Whitney Houston's Demise

Super producer L.A. Reid says his most disastrous career move was putting Whitney Houston on TV for her infamous "crack is whack" interview.

In his new memoir, "Sing To Me," the musican — who has worked with acts including TLC and Kanye West — writes that the 2002 interview with Diane Sawyer was a "terrible strategic mistake."

After a wave of press coverage claiming that the "I Will Always Love You" star had been using drugs including crack cocaine and was suffering from an eating disorder, she sat down for a prime time interview on ABC.

Looking disoriented and with a scratchy voice, Houston told the veteran broadcaster, "Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let's get that straight. Okay? We don't do crack. We don't do that. Crack is whack."

It was later revealed that Houston was, in fact, addicted to the drug.

In the book, which comes out on Tuesday, Reid says he "went to great lengths" to arrange the interview in the hopes of turning around the bad press.

The problem was, Reid himself had no idea how bad the superstar's drug problem was because he "wasn't comfortable prying into her personal life."

To his horror, he writes that he realized "in an instant" how serious her disease was when he began watching the broadcast.

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