Oprah says she begged audience not to leak Whitney Houston stage fall

Oprah Winfrey has revealed that Whitney Houston once fell off stage during an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show and that she "begged" the audience not to leak the incident to the press.

Speaking at a Cannes Lions event on Tuesday, the daytime TV icon recalled the moment the late music icon fell during an emotional performance on the talk show.

Winfrey explained that Houston, who died in 2012 following an accidental drowning in a hotel bathtub, appeared on her self-titled talk show in 2009 after relapsing on drugs.

"This was an amazing thing that happened," she said. "I had such trust from the Oprah Show audience that Whitney did, I think, what was her last show with us. She had gone back on drugs."

"The first interview I did with her when we'd gone behind stage and I asked about her intentions, she was clean," the TV legend continued. "But the day she came to my show to perform in front of the audience, she was not, and she fell off of the stage."

Winfrey noted that she acted quickly in the moment and urged the audience not to share what had happened with the media.

"I knew that if that story got out that she'd fallen off the stage, that she would be completely destroyed by that," she shared. "Even though the audience was there and the audience had cameras, I begged them not to put those pictures up because it would ruin her life, and they did not."

The television host added that "that would not happen today, I can tell you that."

Houston struggled with addiction for more than two decades, with her substance abuse reportedly beginning in her teens.