Whitney Houston's Family Reveals Singer Was Molested As A Kid

A bombshell has just been revealed in director Kevin Macdonald's latest Whitney documentary, which gives an in-depth look into the life of the iconic late superstar

The Oscar award-winning director wanted to make a film that would be “an intimate, unflinching portrait of Houston and her family that probes beyond familiar tabloid headlines and sheds new light on the spellbinding trajectory of Houston’s life.” However, as he continued doing research for the documentary, Macdonald discovered some harsh realities about Houston's youth.

“So many people I spoke to were just untruthful to me, just bulls**ting. I never experienced that in any documentary before,” he told Vanity Fair. “And I had to interview many more people, many more times than I ever have on anything else, in order to try and still get some bit of truth.”

When Macdonald interviewed Houston's brother, Gary, that's when the truth finally came out. Gary admitted that both he and his sister were molested as children by their cousin Dee Dee Warwick, singer Dionne Warwick's sister. 

“Being a child—being seven, eight, nine years old—and being molested by a female family member of mine. My mother and father were gone a lot, so we stayed with a lot of different people . . . four, five different families who took care of us,” Gary said in the doc.

Houston's longtime assistant, Mary Jones, would later reveal more about the star's childhood molestation. In the film, Jones said: “[Houston] looked at me and said, ‘Mary, I was molested at a young age too. But it wasn’t by a man—it was a woman.’” 

Jones continued: “She had tears in her eyes. She says, ‘Mommy don’t know the things we went through.’ I said, ‘Have you ever told your mother?’ She says, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Well, maybe you need to tell her.’ She said, ‘No, my mother would hurt somebody if I told her who it was.’ She just had tears rolling down her face, and I just hugged her. I said, ‘One day when you get the nerve, you need to tell your mother. It will lift the burden off you.’”

Houston would take this dark secret to her grave without telling her mom or Dionne Warwick. Now, they both know about the abuse. 

“She hasn’t wanted to see the film,” Pat Houston, Houston's sister-in-law, manager, and estate executor said about Dionne. “But very much myself and everyone else, we all don’t want her to suffer by the actions of her family. Any negative feelings toward her would be completely wrong. She had nothing to do with it. She knew nothing about it. We definitely don’t want any repercussions for her.”

Whitney is hitting theaters on July 6. 

Photo: Getty Images


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