Pop, Soul, and R&B icon Whitney Houston has passed away at the age of 48. Time, location, and cause of death are currently unknown, according to the singer's publicist Kristen Foster.

News of the singer's passing comes on the eve of music's biggest night with The Grammy Awards. It is not known at this time how the singer, who once reigned as Grammy queen, will be honored at the impending ceremony tomorrow night.

From the mid-1980s into the late 1990s, Whitney Houston was one of the world's best selling musical artists. She also parlayed those talents into numerous film roles, and served as an influence to a whole generation of upcoming singers ranging from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey, and many in the spectrum in-between.

Houston dropped her debut album in 1985 with the self titled "Whitney Houston", which sold millions across the globe and brought her Grammy number one for "Saving all My Love For You." She was also awarded Best Female Pop Vocalist of 1985. Her second album "Whitney" went multi-platinum in 1987, and once again racked up a number of hits including "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" and "I Wanna Dance with Somebody". She would go onto win four more Grammies for a total of six spanning her entire career. Whitney also stands as the only artist to have ever charted seven consecutive No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100.

Her first acting role came with the 1992 Kevin Costner thriller The Bodyguard. She also contributed to the soundtrack, which was awarded the 1994 Grammy for Album of the Year. Her lead single off The Bodyguard sountrack, "I Will Always Love You", a reworking of the classic Dolly Parton song, became the best-selling single by a female artist in music history. With this album, she also became the first act of any kind to sell more than a million copies of an album in a single week.

Throughout her acting career, the singer also appeared in the popular dramas Waiting to Exhale, starring opposite Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, and Lela Rochon, and The Preacher's Wife, the soundtrack of which became the best selling gospel album in history. She recorded seven solo albums in total, the final of which was "I Look to You" in 2009.

During the success of The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston caused controversy within the music community for marrying wild child R&B singer Bobby Brown. The relationship ship saw both parties spiral out of control, with Whitney Houston admitting to a hard-to-break drug habit that resulted in many arrests on charges ranging from DUIs to failure to pay child support. As the couple seemed to slip into madness, they launched their own 2005 reality series Being Bobby Brown, which helped to solidify their growing reputation as hasbeens. The two got divorced in April of 2007, after 16 years of marriage.

Whitney Houston's career seemed to be on the turn around in recent years. In September of 2011, it was announced that the singer would star in a remake of the 1976 film Sparkle. The movie has been completed and is currently in post-production. It is scheduled for release on August 10th of this year.

Whitney Houston is survived by her daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown.