Whitney Houston’s family are shocked by sexual allegations documented in the new Whitney film.
Director Kevin Macdonald interviewed close family and friends to the late singer, exposing both Whitney Houston and her half brother, Gary Garland, were allegedly molested by their cousin, Dee Dee Warwick, during their childhood.
Whitney Houston’s mother, Cissy Houston, released a joint statement with niece Dionne Warwick to People, highlighting that the family first heard of such claims two days prior to the film’s release back in May at the Cannes Film Festival.
The statement revealed: “We cannot overstate the shock and horror we feel and the difficulty we have believing that my niece Dee Dee Warwick… molested two of my three children”.
“… The idea that [Dee Dee] would have molested my children is overwhelming and for us unfathomable… Neither I, Dionne, nor my son Michael… has ever heard these allegations; we have never heard anything remotely connected to the crimes charged against Dee Dee in the film. How can that be fair to my daughter, to Dee Dee, or to our family?”
Despite having to live most of her life in the public eye, Cissy Houston defends her daughter stating the public has no right to “know every intimate detail of her life beyond what she herself revealed during her lifetime… if she was molested I do not believe she would have wanted it to be revealed for the first time to thousands, maybe millions of people in a film.”
Whitney director Macdonald, 50, revealed to Vanity Fair in May that he “managed to persuade Mary Jones, who was Whitney’s longtime assistant and probably knew her in her last years more than anybody,” to open up about the molestation claims, as featured in the documentary.
“She talks about what Whitney felt and what effect it had on her. So we changed the whole cut at the very last minute. It was kind of a detective story to get that piece of information, which changed how I felt about Whitney and how I felt about the story”.
People magazine reported revealing the information was a difficult decision for Mary Jones, “she confided in me and I struggled tremendously deciding whether to share this secret or keep to myself”.
Jones goes on further to say, “I deeply love and respect Dionne, Cissy and their entire families, and my intention was never to embarrass anyone in the family, but rather to bring to light that Whitney was subjected to something painful and troubling as a child. And it’s something that happens to other innocent kids and goes unspoken too much… I decided to share the story so that people might understand that throughout her entire life Whitney carried this with her, and the weight of it was immense. Whitney was a wonderful woman, an angel, and she did not drag herself down all alone — there was a cause.”
Before the film debut, director Macdonald revealed on Good Morning America that Gary Houston “was molested when he was a kid by a woman in the family and he thought also Whitney had been as well.”
In Whitney, Gary Houston, 60, alleges Dee Dee Warwick molested him when he was 7 to 9 years old. He had no prior knowledge of Whitney’s alleged abuse leading up to the film’s release.
Gary further revealed in an interview on Good Morning America, “I was 8 [or] 9 years old and I was being fondled with from time to time. It was a situation I didn’t understand. I knew it was abnormal.”
Cissy Houston and Dionne Warwick concluded their joint statement: “After people have seen the film they will draw their own conclusions and we are not trying to change that. We just want people to know there is another side. While the filmmakers certainly had the legal right to make this film, I wonder at the moral right.”
No charges were ever filed against Dee Dee Warwick.
Dee Dee Warwick passed away in 2008. The Grammy-nominated soul singer sang backup vocals for stars including Aretha Franklin. Dee Dee Warwick is the sister of Dionne Warwick, and both are nieces of Cissy Houston, Whitney’s mother.
Whitney Houston, who was 18 years younger than Dee Dee Warwick, died in February 2012 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel from drowning and the effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use.
Whitney is now out in theatres.