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After almost a full week since music icon Whitney Houston died in her hotel bathroom, Ray J is finally breaking his silence about the loss, according to US Magazine.

RELATED: Remembering The Positives Of Whitney’s Life

In a statement, Ray J told US Weekly:

“Over the past few days, I’ve tried to process the emptiness that I am experiencing. What my heart feels cannot be expressed in words,” he tells Us Weekly in a statement. “The world lost an icon, but I lost my close friend.”

The singer also had a special message for the fallen star:

“Nippy, I miss you so much! You were so happy and full of love,” Ray J, 31, says. “Your smile will live in my heart forever.”

Ray J and Whitney’s “friendship” dates back to 2007, when Whitney divorced Bobby Brown. In 2008, Ray J and Whitney were spotted again in Las Vegas at the Bernard Hopkins vs. Joe Calzaghe fight. Even though the media has been pressuring Ray J to fess up about whether his relationship with Houston ever went beyond the platonic, he has always kept the details of their bond private.

http://www.theinsider.com/media/flash/coincident/popOutPlayer.html?media=http://www.theinsider.com/gossip/49616_Ray_J_Talks_KK_and_Whitney_Houston/embed.ctv

“Our friendship is something that people might not understand, maybe because of the age difference, but we’ve always just been friends,” Ray J said. “We hug, we laugh, we go out to dinner. … We talk about, you know, different things in our lives and she’s a cool person,” Ray J told the Insider last Friday.

“We’ve always kept our relationship as private as we could, but when we go out, she’s such an icon, it reaches the masses,” Ray J said. “But, for the most part, we’ve always been friends and we’ve kept everything hush-hush and just quiet and we really don’t focus on that.”