Andrew McManus was already in a very bad place when police arrested him at Melbourne Airport in September 2015. Once the doyen of Australian concert promoters, McManus’s life had been unravelling for some time. His marriage had broken up and he was numbing the pain with regular infusions of vodka and prescription drugs. 

His professional situation was nearly as shambolic. McManus had briefly overseen a professional wrestling franchise and brought a who’s who of rock royalty to the southern hemisphere, including Fleetwood Mac, Kiss and Pavarotti.

But showbiz promotion can be precarious, even for a big fish. An upcoming visit to Australia by Lenny Kravitz was putting his business under strain to the tune of $200,000, but his troubles had really begun in 2010, after his business sustained a $1.2 million loss when promoting another major international star: Whitney Houston.

Hence his participation in a bizarre money laundering scheme involving a suitcase stuffed with $700,000 of suspected crime proceeds. The sum had been recovered by the authorities in a Hilton hotel in Sydney in 2011 following a tip-off. McManus claimed that the money was his. The convoluted plan was for the promoter to retrieve the money from the police having falsely asserted ownership. 

Once handed over, he would receive $200,000 and pass the rest to his co-conspirators. They would have their money, freshly laundered; he would have the cash required to literally keep the show on the road.

But, with the case coming to the attention of both the FBI and the New South Wales Organised Crime Squad, it was quickly established that the loot had nothing to do with McManus. He later admitted to lying to police and at Sydney District Court in 2017 received a suspended sentence. 

"I was looking at the world through the bottom of a vodka glass,” he explained. His lawyer revealed his client had made the false claims regarding the cash while “under a rush of cocaine”. Agreeing that McManus was unlikely to reoffend, the judge decided not to impose a jail term. 

McManus had been in a dicey situation when the fateful plan was hatched in 2011. On February 22, 2010, Whitney Houston had brought her soon-to-be-notorious Nothing But Love tour to Australia. What ensued was a debacle almost as bizarre as McManus’s subsequent dalliances with organised crime. Things didn't end well for either party.

Indeed, the parallels between the then unravelling promoter and former chart princess Houston were uncanny. Each was in the process of falling from great heights, their plunge accelerated by addiction.

The difference was that rock bottom for McManus would be arrest and a suspended jail sentence. For Houston it would culminate with her death in 2012 in a bathtub at the Beverly Hills Hotel, with cocaine identified as a contributory factor in her drowning at age 48. The story is wrenchingly told in a new documentary, Whitney, by Scottish filmmaker Kevin Macdonald.

Two years before she passed, Houston was already deep in a spiral. Her voice, once so powerful and dulcet, had been ravaged by years of addiction to crack cocaine – a habit that went back to her rough and ready upbringing in Newark, New Jersey. 

One popular myth around Houston was that her chemical dependency started when she fell for “bad boy” r’n b star Bobby Brown, whom she married in 1992. But she was already using drugs prior to becoming involved with Brown. In her memoir Remembering Whitney the singer’s mother Cissy stated that Houston’s management had attempted to address her cocaine use as early as 1987, years before she met her future husband.  

“Nobody kept Whitney from doing anything,” her assistant (and long-rumoured lover) Robyn Crawford would remember in Esquire in 2012. “She did what she wanted to do.”

Still, Brown was undoubtedly deemed a negative influence by her family. “I don't believe he did much to help her.,” wrote Cissy Houston. “When it came to getting clean, he and Nippy [her pet-name for her daughter] never seemed to be in the same place at the same time, and that made the process much harder.". 

Houston and Brown divorced in 2007 and she emerged from rehab set on revitalising her career. At first all seemed to be going according to plan, with 2009 single Million Dollar Bill becoming her first UK hit in a decade. 

That was despite a bizarre appearance on the X Factor results show that October. Houston had looked deeply disgruntled as hopefuls attempted to cover her music ("They're young. They have a lot of room to grow,” was as positive as her mentoring got). She was then hindered by a strap on her dress breaking as she performed Million Dollar Bill.

Nonetheless, the sense was that she was bouncing back. Houston’s new album, I Look To You, was her biggest hit since the Bodyguard soundtrack 17 years previously. She had introduced the record at a series of star-studded listening parties, beginning on July 14 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Knightsbridge. 

Among those attending shindigs in London, New York and LA were Alicia Keys (co-writer of Million Dollar Bill), Martha Stewart, Halle Berry, Jane Fonda, Magic Johnson, Barry Manilow and Jackie Collins. One of pop’s most tragic recluses was back on top.

But cracks were soon showing – and would open into a chasm when she took the album on the road, beginning in Moscow on December 9 2009. Significantly, Nothing But Love would skip America entirely. The whisperings later on were that Houston was not really fit to go on the road and that it had been decided to shield her from the glare of the American media. 

If the plan was to avoid attention, it fell ruinously apart as she arrived in Australia in February, where Andrew McManus was waiting to meet her. 

Opening night in Brisbane was a disaster. At the airport, Houston had reportedly flown into a strop when her limo arrived two minutes behind schedule. On stage that night eye-witnesses said she appeared “disorientated” and worryingly reliant on backing singers. 

Halfway through I Will Always Love You, her great power ballad, she paused to drink water and towel herself down. Endless costume changes padded out the set. Long before the encore a stream was heading towards the exit. Those who stayed complained that Houston was absent for 25 of the 90 minute running time. 

The only one to defend her was the concert’s promoter – the soon to be infamous McManus. 

"I saw the whole show. Was it an A? No, it was probably a B+,'' he said. "It was not a train wreck. She was hitting most of the notes, yes her throat was a little croaky. "Her health is fine but she's also not 22 years of age anymore.”

"Whitney's ramblings, memory loss of one of her band members name, terrible voice and plain unprofessional performance will go down as one of the worst concerts ever,” one punter wrote on the website of the Brisbane Courier-Mail. “I certainly won't be rushing out to buy any more of her records. She has completely lost it and it was awful seeing so many people leaving, shaking their heads and laughing at her.”

The fall out from the tour would ultimately leave McManus’s finances severely depleted: “We had to weather nearly $2 million in refunds ... creating an overall loss on the tour of $1.2 million,” he admitted. Houston had by then moved on to the UK, where her performances continued to prove eccentric. Boos echoed loudly and lengthily at her first stop at Birmingham’s Genting Arena on April 13.

She was visibly out of breath singing I Wanna Dance with Somebody, according to attendees, and wrong-footed her band by re-configuring the setlist mid-performance (“it’s my show – I can do what I want,” she told them). During one costume change she was gone so long many began to wonder whether she’d be back. Cries of “where are you?” echoed around the room. 

The big surprise was that nobody in her camp had seemingly appreciated just how ill-prepared Houston was for the rigours of the road. Certainly anyone watching her on The X Factor the previous October would have sensed all was not well.

An even earlier warning had come during one of her final ever American performances: a free concert at New York Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield on September 1 2009. Arriving just after midday – the performance was broadcast live on Good Morning America – Houston had developed breathing difficulties midway through Million Dollar Bill. 

With sweat rolling down her brow, she broke off to smother herself in a towel and adjust her make-up. She next stared into the wings at long-suffering Cissy and sang I Look To You. But again, the high notes weren’t coming – as was the case as she moved on to I’m Every Woman. After just four songs she slunk away spent and diminished – and with a 47 date international trek to look forward to.

In Europe the following year, Houston continued to behave eccentrically. But she also slogged on, conscious that the tour was replenishing her coffers – with the ultimate gross estimated at $36 million. 

Her determination was underscored when volcano Eyjafjallajökull filled the skies over the continent with ash that spring. Many artists cancelled or rescheduled dates. Rather than take the financial hit, Houston and company booked themselves on a ferry to Dublin for three concerts. Here she once again broke the hearts of fans, many too young to have seen her in her prime. 

On her opening night in Ireland, Houston fiddled with her head-mic throughout the performance. At one point she interrupted a song to readjust her monitor - turning her back to the crowd and tugging awkwardly at the receiver at her waist. In the stalls, nobody was quite sure how to respond. 

Was she playing for laughs – or just completely lacking in awareness? In contrast to the boos in Birmingham, the sound many will remember from Dublin was nervous tittering. You didn’t know where to look. 

Houston then caught the eye of a girl down the front and asked what she was doing there alone. The teenager explained that her mother hadn’t been able to afford another ticket in row one. 

So Houston had the (mortified) mum dragged up from her seat. Following the latest of many interminable costume changes, Houston then emerged clutching a bag full of merchandise which she passed to the girl. In another context it might have been charming. On that night, it just felt strange. 

“In terms of artistic success, her Nothing But Love world tour was a complete train wreck,” wrote Mark Bego in his biography Whitney Houston!: The Spectacular Rise and Tragic Fall of the Woman Whose Voice Inspired a Generation.

 “Countless thousands of fans walked out on her concerts, bitterly disappointed by what they witnessed. This was supposed to be the big Whitney Houston comeback tour. Whatever promise that the temporary success of the I Look To You album suggested, her 2010 concerts instantly eroded.”

Nothing But Love came to an end at Manchester Arena, where she bowed out with two concerts on June 16 and 17. By then, it was being reported that people were buying tickets to simply go and boo her. Houston would never again tour  – though she would continue to perform in public intermittently. Her final appearance, a duet at a Grammy’s party with singer Kelly Price, was just two days before her death. 

“You are a class act – you are an icon,” said Price as, apparently unprompted, Houston got on stage and joined the host on Heartbreak Hotel. 

Her voice was rickety but she made it over the finish line. And yet controversy was once again not far away. Later that evening, eye-witnesses reported Houston getting into a verbal altercation with American X Factor finalist Stacy Francis and r’n’b singer Ray J. 

"Whitney just got belligerent," a bystander told The Hollywood Reporter. "Ray was trying to defend Stacy, telling Whitney, 'Stacy's family!', but Whitney was feeling crowded out and hands were raised." 

Forty-eight hours later Houston was dead. And if she left millions of fans with treasured memories, those who caught that disastrous final tour will have had their recollections of Houston tinged by the realisation that they had seen a music legend falling to pieces before their eyes.