Secret that scarred Whitney for ever
A new documentary has claimed that the superstar singer was sexually abused as a child by her cousin Dee Dee Warwick
THE tagline for Whitney, a new documentary that premiered in Cannes on Wednesday night, reads: “You don’t know her story until you hear the truth.” Directed by Oscar-winner Kevin Macdonald it once again lifts the lid on the short, glittering but tragic life of Whitney Houston – and promises to shed new light on the demons that drove her to her death in 2012 aged just 48, drowned in a hotel bathroom while strung out on a cocktail of drugs.
It is a story we thought we knew, not least after Nick Broomfield’s 2017 documentary exposed the singer’s troubled upbringing and early drug use. But “the truth” as revealed in the new film is even more shocking.
Until now Whitney’s struggles with drugs, depression and even her own sexuality have been variously attributed to a childhood in the rough neighbourhoods of Newark, New Jersey, her relationship with bad-boy rapper Bobby Brown and the unrelenting pressures brought on by her 1980s and ’90s superstardom.
But Macdonald’s documentary makes a new revelation: that the singer was sexually abused as a child by her first cousin Dee Dee Warwick, younger sister of Dionne Warwick. According to Houston’s longtime assistant Mary Jones, Whitney revealed to her that Dee Dee had molested her “at a young age” – a claim backed up by her brother Gary Garland-Houston, who says he was also molested, between the ages of seven and nine.
Jones says that the ordeal not only contributed towards the singer’s problems with drug addiction but also that it made her question her own sexuality. Dee Dee, who was 18 years older than Whitney, died in 2008 and this is the first time the allegations have been publicly aired.
The film has been made with the cooperation of Whitney’s family and includes “unprecedented access” to family and friends including her mother Cissy and husband Bobby Brown. Producer Simon Chinn says: “These are specific revelations that I think will get people to a deeper understanding of who Whitney was and in many ways redeem her as a person.”
The documentary also alleges that Whitney’s father John stole earnings from her when acting as her accountant. He unsuccessfully sued his daughter for $100 million in 2002 for a breach of contract. She did not attend his funeral when he died a year later.
Born and raised in Newark, Whitney sang in a church gospel choir while a schoolgirl, along with Cissy and best friend Robyn Crawford, whom she described as “the sister I never had”. Robyn would later become Whitney’s personal assistant and there were rumours their relationship was founded on more than just friendship – and that Whitney hid her true sexuality from the world for fear of it affecting record sales.
WHEN Cissy appeared on Oprah in 2013, she was asked if it would have bothered her if Whitney had come out as gay. “Absolutely,” she replied.
Bobby Brown, whose relationship with Whitney caused an irreparable split between the singer and Robyn, has since said he believes Whitney would still be alive if she had felt able to admit publicly she was bisexual.
The abuse revelations have also cast new light on the singer’s drug use: previously the accepted wisdom has always been that her problems with cocaine and heroin had their roots in the rough streets of Newark. Brother Michael confessed in 2013 that he and his sister took cocaine as teenagers and friend Ellin La Var remembered: “It was the thing you do. Go out, you party, you drink, you do a little drugs.”
There is now a suggestion, however, that Whitney’s addictions were not a case simply of hard partying but a means of escape. The 2017 documentary claimed she first took heroin as young as 10 – now perhaps because of the alleged abuse she received at the hands of Dee Dee. It was later revealed that she even took heroin in front of daughter Bobbi Kristina, who tragically emulated her mother in 2015 when she was found face down in the bath after taking drugs aged just 22.
Ultimately Whitney’s legacy will be her music. Macdonald says he was moved to make the documentary by her “genius” rather than her demons. Her 1986 self-titled breakthrough album remains the biggest selling debut by a woman and to date she has sold more than 200million records, including an unprecedented seven consecutive US No 1 singles. Her 1992 version of Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You, from the film The Bodyguard in which she also starred, is the best-selling single by a woman in music history.
But with success came a terrible kind of pressure that, combined with the mental and emotional scarring of her abused childhood, ultimately proved too much for the tragic singer.
Backstage footage in the new documentary shows an exhausted Whitney Houston sighing: “There were times when I’d look up to God and I’d go, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ People think it’s so easy... and it’s not.” Whitney is in cinemas July 6.