Melanie Fiona, Whitney Houston: Singer Cried ‘Three Hours Straight’ After Idol’s Death

Melanie Fiona had a lot to be thankful for at this year's Grammy Awards. Before winning the trophies in the Best R&B Song and Traditional R&B Vocal Performance categories -- both for her feature on Cee Lo Green's 'Fool For You' -- the Canadian songstress was numb with grief over the death of her idol, Whitney Houston.

"I can't tell you the last time I felt that I was hit with something so shocking," Fiona told The BoomBox while at the awards show. "I literally had bags in my hand. I dropped them, and I cried for three hours straight. I couldn't stop the tears from falling. I was emotional. I felt like I had lost somebody I'd known my whole life. Even though I didn't physically actually know her my whole life, she's had such a huge presence in my life, my entire life, and is such a huge part of why I'm sitting here doing what I do today. It was devastating. I immediately felt exhausted, like I didn't wanna do anything else, just overcome with grief. I just chilled out and really took a moment to reflect and just honor her."

Although they never met in person, Houston was a fan of Fiona and even secretly attended one of her concerts.

"When I was on tour with Alicia Keys, I was in Atlanta; [Houston] was at the concert," Fiona said. "I didn't know she was there, and my crew was like, 'Oh my god, Mel, did you see Whitney?' I was like, 'Whitney who?' They were like, 'Whitney Houston!' Whitney Houston was in the building, and they didn't tell me. I left. I didn't get a chance to meet her. I cried that night. That's the closest I've ever been to her, and I was like, 'It's OK. I'll get to meet her, and I'll get to tell her [how much she means to me].' Unfortunately, I won't get that opportunity."

Since Houston's death over the weekend, there has been an outpouring of love and adoration both inside and outside of the music world. Within minutes of the Associated Press using Twitter to tweet the news of her passing, the social media site lit up with re-tweets, 2.5 million of which occurred within the first hour alone. By 5:23PM PST, posts mentioning Houston's death peaked at 61,227 tweets per minute.