With more than 140 million albums sold worldwide, icon Whitney Houston is the most awarded woman in music history. Her powerful presence filled the screen in The Bodyguard, which made more than $400 million worldwide. The film's soundtrack remains the best-selling of all time. But behind her megastar success, Whitney hid the intense personal pain of her tumultuous 14-year marriage to R&B star Bobby Brown and a battle with drug abuse.

In the week's episode of Oprah Winfrey Show, Monday, December 19, 8.00 pm Whitney sits down with Oprah and opened up like never before…

Some excerpts:

Oprah: The very first time I had you on my show, however many years ago, I thought, "You are 'the voice…"  There was a time, I read, where you were actually thinking in this past seven years—because you haven't done an album since 2002—that you were thinking of, I read, going to an island and having a fruit stand?

Whitney: Yeah… growing organic fruits with my daughter, on a little island on the beach, and doing everything, living the simple life. You have to understand, I have been all around the world ... and I'd done it all at that point in time, or I thought. However, I wasn't remembering the gift that God had given me. I had totally put all that aside. And my daughter was growing up before my eyes, and I just wanted to grab hold of that. ...

At that time in my life, I was going through such trauma. ... I thought that was enough for me. I had the money. I had the cars. I had the house. Had the husband… had the kid. And none of it was really that fulfilling. For a time, I was happy. I was happy, but I needed that joy. I needed my joy back. I needed that peace that passes all understanding.

Oprah: There's a wonderful quote by the L.A. Times. They said, "The pain, and frankly, disgust that so many pop fans felt during Houston's decline was caused not so much by her personal distress as by her seemingly careless treatment of the national treasure that happened to reside within her." ... You were not like any of the others. You really were given the voice. You were given that treasure. And people felt, how could you not know that that was to be treasured?

Whitney: I knew in the days when I was a teenager singing for God. I was so sure. When I became "Whitney Houston" and all this other stuff that happened my life became the world's… My privacy…my business… Who I was with… Who I married... And I was, like, that's not fair. I wanted to go to the park. I wanted to walk down the street with my husband, hand in hand, without somebody looking at us or having the media always in my business. ... I just wanted to be normal.

Oprah: Was marrying Bobby a way to be out?

Whitney: [Nods.] In a sense! He allowed me to be me. He was fun; passionate; loving. It was crazy. We were crazy love.

Oprah: Were you first interested in him or he interested in you?

Whitney: He was interested in me.

Oprah: Really. What did he say?

Whitney: Bobby was more like: "Hey, check this out, I want to ask you something, you know? If I was to ask you to go out with me, would you say yeah?" I said: "Yeah, I would. I certainly would." And then from that moment on, we clicked. We were friends. Three years we went out before we got married. Three years we dated; Jet-setting all over the world; doing what we wanted to do.

Oprah: Well, one of the things that I recall in an interview that you did with Diane Sawyer in 2002, the world was shocked when she asked you about addiction and you said if there was an addiction, it was an addiction to making love.

Whitney: Yes. We did a lot of that. Lots…

Oprah: When did it start to go wrong? Can there be too much passion?

Whitney: Yeah, it can clash. ... After the film The Bodyguard. 1993, 1994, 1995 were filled with The Bodyguard years. That album lasted me. It went for a long ways. I was on a whirlwind by that point in time. I was going everywhere. That record was so huge. So I had my baby.

I had my baby in my hands, and I had the man of my life that I loved so very much who I was crazy for with me. And he had just put everything aside of his own, and just said: "I'll go with you. Don't worry about it. Go do this thing." I think somewhere inside something happens to a man when a woman has that much control or has that much fame. ... If he doesn't have his own.

Oprah: Was he jealous of you?

Whitney: He's not going to like this, but yes.

Oprah: Then did you try to overcompensate?

Whitney: I tried to play down all the time. I did. I tried to play: "I'm Mrs. Brown, everybody. Don't call me Ms. Houston."

Oprah: When did you know that that marriage was not going to work?

Whitney: I just knew. I was like, "You don't smell right. You don't look right. Something's going on." And then all this other stuff started coming out about him being with this one or that one or being too promiscuous. Dragging dirt into my home…

Oprah: You said you realized that the marriage was going to be over. Did you then make a decision that "I'm going to get myself out"?

Whitney: Yeah. I remember saying to God one day, I said, "Give me one day of strength." I was weak. I was so weak to [Bobby]. I was so weak to the love. I was, like: "This is love? What is this? What am I into?"

Join Oprah as she speaks to Whitney Houston on her break up after 14 years of marriage and the trauma she faced while taking the decision on Oprah Winfrey Show, on Monday December 19 at 8.00 pm only on BIG CBS LOVE.