Cissy Houston Condemns Whitney Documentary, Including Molestation Allegations
EntertainmentThough Kevin Macdonald’s documentary Whitney was commissioned and technically authorized by Whitney Houston’s estate (whose executor is the late singer’s sister-in-law, Pat Houston), the film is nonetheless the subject of a thorough and at times scathing statement released by Whitney’s mother, Cissy Houston.
“While the filmmakers certainly had the legal right to make this film, I wonder at the moral right,” Cissy wrote in a statement. In an interview last month, Macdonald told Jezebel he had final cut of the film, and it seems he exercised his editorial freedom at the risk of facing Houston’s family wrath.
The primary subject of the statement Cissy delivered to People on behalf of herself and her niece Dionne Warwick is the bombshell allegation that Whitney was molested by her cousin, Dee Dee Warwick (sister of Dionne and niece of Cissy). The claim is made in the film’s final quarter by Whitney’s former assistant Mary Jones (Pat Houston is shown confirming that she’s heard the claim as well). “If Cissy would have known it was happening, she would have done something about it, because Cissy loves her children,” Jones says in the film. Cissy is not seen responding to the claim—she’s only briefly in the movie’s early scenes. Additionally, Macdonald told Jezebel that the idea that Whitney was sexually abused “made a lot of things make sense to me.”