It's been a hard few years for Whitney Houston. She's fought crack addiction, unrequited love from the world's most dangerous terrorist leader and an ex-husband determined to pull turds out of her pooper with his fingers.

But now the old Whitney Houston that we knew and loved tolerated were openly disparaging about is back. Instead of a haggard old toothless confused crack addict crawling around the floor swatting imaginary demons from her head, the Whitney Houston who turned up to a fundraiser for diabetes in Beverly Hills on Saturday night was resplendent – dressed in a stunning evening gown dripping with jewels and constantly blowing kisses to besotted photographers. Well, she was either blowing kisses or subtly puffing the imaginary demons away, while sending coded messages to Osama bin Laden to come and get her. Who can really tell for sure?

For years Whitney Houston has been a crutch to all kinds of newly-separated women, and that's something we say with all the authority of someone once trapped in a carriage on the last train to Bournemouth full of pissed-up middle-aged divorcees screeching Where Do Broken Hearts Go at each other and cackling. But now Whitney Houston finds herself in a similar position.

For, where once Whitney Houston was happily one half of the world's tackiest couple with Bobby Brown – a man with his own reality TV show and a tendency to foul up New Edition reunions – recently Whitney Houston bowed to all the rumours, left Bobby Brown and filed for divorce from him. This was a signal to all unhappy women; Whitney Houston was saying "If I can leave my no-good husband in order to try and halt my debilitating crack addiction, rebuild my tattered multi-million selling musical career and put stories about Osama bin Laden being obsessively in love with me to one side, then so can you." And on Saturday night at the Carousel Of Hope Ball Whitney Houston showed how determined she was to make some sort of comeback, as People reports:

In her first high-profile public appearance since her recent split from husband Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston was the belle of the ball Saturday night at a stellar benefit in Beverly Hills that raised more than $70 million for juvenile diabetes research. "I feel great," said Houston, basking in the attention.

And everyone knew that Whitney Houston was the star of the benefit. She got more attention than any of the other guests combined and, although Whitney didn't sing at the benefit, American Idol almost-winner Katharine McPhee sang a Whitney Houston song for everyone; an act that – according to People's report – Whitney Houston acknowledged by nodding her head at one point slightly.

In fact, Whitney's appearance at the benefit was such a success that her record producer Clive Davis mentioned something about making a new Whitney Houston album that reflects the emotional turbulence that Whitney has been through these last few years. It's thought that songs drafted in for inclusion on her new album include I Love Crack (And Osama Loves Me), Are You The Man (To Tug At My Constipated Shit?) and Hasn't Hecklerspray Been Overdoing This Fake Song Title Thing Lately? (Shoop Shoop).

Read more:

Whitney Houston: I Feel Great – People

[story by Stuart Heritage]