Whitney Houston Funeral Guests Confirmed

Clive Davis, her musical mentor, will speak at the ceremony, which will include contributions from her cousin Dionne Warwick and singer Alicia Keys.

Houston’s ex-husband Bobby Brown and Kevin Costner, with whom she starred in The Bodyguard, are among those who have been invited to the private service.

Police plan to block off streets around the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark. No one without an invitation will be allowed near the building and fans have been urged to stay home.

The funeral will be shown live on US television after the Houston family agreed to have a single video camera inside the church.

The ceremony will also be streamed on the BBC News website at 12:00 EST (17:00 GMT).

Various media crews are already in place outside the church, hoping to capture footage of the guests arriving and leaving.

The funeral comes one week after Houston was found in her hotel bathroom in Los Angeles.

Officials are waiting for the results of toxicology tests that will help them ascertain how the 48-year-old died.

Houston was one of the world’s best-selling artists from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, selling 170 million records worldwide.

Sales of her records have soared since her death was announced last Saturday.