{"id":3094,"date":"2018-05-17T02:06:50","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T09:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=3094"},"modified":"2018-05-17T02:06:50","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T09:06:50","slug":"whitney-houstons-dark-family-secret-uncovered-in-new-documentary-vanity-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=3094","title":{"rendered":"“Whitney Houston\u2019s Dark Family Secret Uncovered in New Documentary”, Vanity Fair"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Kevin Macdonald\u2019s Whitney,<\/em> premiering at Cannes Wednesday, Houston\u2019s inner circle confirm a childhood trauma Houston suffered.<\/p>\n

Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald<\/strong> (One Day in September<\/em>, The Last King of Scotland<\/em>) did not set out to break news with Whitney,<\/em> his heart-wrenching documentary about Whitney Houston that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Wednesday. He wanted to scrub off the sad, tabloid narrative that debased the singer\u2019s reputation in her final, drug-addicted years, to show how one of the greatest vocal talents of the 20th century\u2014a sweet girl from Newark, New Jersey\u2014self-destructed and died in 2012 at the age of 48 under tragic circumstances. But after watching hundreds of hours of private Houston footage\u2014taken at home, on tour, and backstage\u2014Macdonald began to be haunted by a sad suspicion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was something very disturbed about her, because she was never comfortable in her own skin,\u201d Macdonald told Vanity Fair<\/em> on Wednesday. \u201cShe seemed kind of asexual in a strange way. She was a beautiful woman, but she was never particularly sexy. I\u2019ve seen and done some filming with people who have suffered childhood sexual abuse, and there was just something about her manner that was reminiscent to me of that sort of shrinking\u2014a lack of comfort in her own physicality that felt, maybe that is what it was.<\/em>\u201d Macdonald wasn\u2019t positive that his hunch was right\u2014but \u201cshortly after thinking that, someone did tell me off the record about being told by Whitney about being abused, and it being one of the central reasons behind her self-torture. It took awhile for anyone to go on record about it, and eventually the family did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bombshell is dropped about three-quarters of the way through Whitney<\/em>\u2014that both Houston and her half-brother, Gary,<\/strong> were allegedly molested as children by their cousin Dee Dee Warwick, the sister of Dionne Warwick<\/strong> and the niece of Houston\u2019s mother, Cissy Houston,<\/strong> who died in 2008. Dee Dee and Dionne performed together as the Gospelaires in the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes singing with Cissy\u2019s gospel group, the Drinkard Singers. Dee Dee went on to sing backup for Aretha Franklin<\/strong> and Wilson Pickett, and be nominated for two Grammy Awards. Cissy also sang backup for Franklin, in addition to Elvis Presley. When she was on tour, Cissy left Whitney, Gary, and their brother Michael<\/strong> for extended periods of time with relatives.<\/p>\n

Asked about what led to his own addiction issues in the film, Gary tells Macdonald, \u201cBeing a child\u2014being seven, eight, nine years old\u2014and 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until two weeks before locking the edit on the documentary that Macdonald got on-the-record confirmation that Houston had also been abused.<\/p>\n

\u201cI finally managed to persuade Mary Jones,<\/strong> who was Whitney\u2019s longtime assistant and probably knew her in her last years more than anybody, to talk [on-camera],\u201d\u00a0Macdonald said. \u201cShe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macdonald re-edited the entire film to build to that revelation. In Jones\u2019s emotional interview, she recalls a conversation she had with the late singer, during which Jones revealed that her sister had been molested as a child.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Houston] looked at me and said, \u2018Mary, I was molested at a young age too. But it wasn\u2019t by a man\u2014it was a woman,\u2019\u201d recalls Jones in the film. \u201cShe had tears in her eyes. She says, \u2018Mommy don\u2019t know the things we went through.\u2019 I said, \u2018Have you ever told your mother?\u2019 She says, \u2018No.\u2019 I said, \u2018Well, maybe you need to tell her.\u2019 She said, \u2018No, my mother would hurt somebody if I told her who it was.\u2019 She just had tears rolling down her face, and I just hugged her. I said, \u2018One day when you get the nerve, you need to tell your mother. It will lift the burden off you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Houston never spoke publicly about the alleged abuse\u2014but, as Macdonald uncovers, she did drop clues about it. Asked in a press interview about what makes her angry, Houston responds with sudden, palpable rage: \u201cChild abuse makes me angry . . . I hate to see kids . . . it bothers me that children, who are helpless, who depend on adults for security and love, it just bothers me. It makes me angry.\u201d Houston also made a point to bring her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, on all of her international tours, rather than leave her daughter at home. She also urged Jones to bring her daughter along with them on trips.<\/p>\n

Asked why Houston never told her mother about the alleged abuse, Jones says, \u201cI think she was ashamed . . . she used to say, \u2018I wonder if I did something to make [Dee Dee] think I wanted her.\u2019 I said, \u2018Stop. A predator is a predator is a predator.\u2019 If Cissy had known, she would have done something about it, because Cissy loves her children.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Macdonald said that Cissy Houston has been informed that the accusation is made in the documentary: \u201cCissy knows. She was told, and very upset. I think she will watch the film at some stage, but it\u2019s obviously up to her when she wants to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macdonald also said that Pat Houston<\/strong>\u2014Whitney\u2019s former sister-in-law, manager, and estate executor, who is interviewed in the film\u2014has told Dionne Warwick about the allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has been informed. She hasn\u2019t wanted to see the film . . . But very much myself and everyone else, we all don\u2019t 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\u2019t want any repercussions for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macdonald had not been particularly interested in making a documentary about Houston until speaking to Houston\u2019s agent Nicole David,<\/strong> who represented Houston from 1986 until Houston died in 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe knew Whitney probably better than anybody outside of her family. And she said to me, \u2018The thing is, I loved her so much, but I still don\u2019t understand why what happened happened to her family.\u2019 That was the key for me. Because, I thought, that\u2019s so interesting she had such devotion and love for this woman, yet she never felt like she understood her. So there was a mystery there. And I approached the film like a mystery. Who was she? Why did she end up as she ended up? And how can we access her, when she never wrote any diaries? Her interviews are almost entirely her avoiding the subject. All you have is the purity of her voice, and the beauty of her voice, and the emotion transmitted by the voice in a nonverbal way. One of the biggest puzzles, for me, were those final years of her life. It seemed like there was some storyline that the public didn\u2019t really know. Her involvement with Bobby Brown,<\/strong> her daughter. There were rumors of substance abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI initially thought the story was maybe about her sexuality\u2014that she was somebody who was not able to be gay [publicly],\u201d said MacDonald, referring to the romantic relationship Houston allegedly had with her longtime best friend and employee Robyn Crawford<\/strong>\u2014a coupling that is confirmed in the documentary by several people who describe Houston\u2019s sexuality as \u201cfluid.\u201d Macdonald e-mailed with Crawford, who toyed with the idea of taking part in the film but ultimately decided not to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized that actually is not the story,\u201d\u00a0said MacDonald. \u201c[Houston] only had, as far as I\u2019m aware, one proper homosexual relationship, with Robyn Crawford, which people know about. I think that only lasted quite a short time. I found some documentation that proves, without a doubt, that it was a romantic relationship between them . . . The real story, as I dug deeper, had to do with her family, and to do with race, I suppose, and her childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macdonald\u2019s investigation felt, at times, like he was not making much headway\u2014even though Pat Houston provided Macdonald with access, Whitney\u2019s archives, and final cut on the film. Macdonald said that, in his two-decade career, he has never encountered as much \u201clying and obfuscation\u201d as he did while speaking to Whitney\u2019s circle of associates.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many people I spoke to were just untruthful to me, just bullshitting. I never experienced that in any documentary before. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family ultimately opened up to Macdonald, in part, he thinks, because Houston destroyed her reputation before she died. \u201cWhat are you protecting anymore? This film hopefully kind of forgives [Houston] for this extraordinary self-destruction and destruction of her daughter\u2019s experience, and hopefully helps people understand her in a different [light]. I think this is something that Pat Houston agrees with\u2014that we hope, in the end, this really helps Whitney.\u201d<\/p>\n

MacDonald\u2019s film examines the fraught relationship Whitney had with Cissy, a professional singer who realized early on how incredible her daughter\u2019s talent was. Having worked around stars for decades, Cissy groomed her daughter extensively to become the legend she became\u2014teaching her to be poised and graceful, how to control her vocal instrument, and sending her to a Catholic all-girls\u2019 high school. The rigorous preparation paid off professionally, but created some resentment in Whitney. When Cissy allegedly had an extramarital affair with the minister at the family\u2019s church\u2014in spite of Whitney\u2019s father\u2019s own philandering\u2014the mother-daughter relationship was further marred.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhitney was very religious, and her life was around the church\u2014so when this happened, her life, her universe, exploded. And she blamed her mother [for her parents\u2019 divorce]. That allowed her father to get his claws into her,\u201d Macdonald said. According to the director, Houston\u2019s father, John, who died in 2003, \u201cjust wanted to get as much money out of her as he could, in the shortest period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the film, Houston\u2019s inner circle recalls staging an intervention for the singer\u2014only to have John tell his daughter that rehab was not necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a sad thing I learned, which isn\u2019t in the film\u2014but Whitney\u2019s publicist, Lynn Volkman,<\/strong> said that someone in John\u2019s office had a drug problem. And John sent that person off to rehab\u2014he was very generous, gave them time off, and was really caring. At the same time, his own daughter, who was on drugs, he didn\u2019t do anything about it. He didn\u2019t try to stop the train.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film alleges that John, who worked as his daughter\u2019s manager, also stole money from her. When Houston learned of the betrayal\u2014as her marriage to Brown was crumbling\u2014she was crushed. Her drug habit escalated\u2014she preferred smoking cocaine with marijuana\u2014and she would disappear behind closed hotel-room doors for up to 10 days. Rather than intervene, the film alleges that her label poured over $5 million into ill-fated recording trips\u2014like a three-month jaunt to Miami that produced less than two songs. A producer recalls Houston saying at the trip\u2019s end, \u201cI don\u2019t think I slept 45 minutes this summer.\u201d\u00a0Macdonald also dispels the myth that Brown was responsible for his wife\u2019s drug addiction. In one scene, Gary tells Macdonald that, when he was with Houston, they would do drugs every day. \u201cA lot every day\u2014shit that usually kills motherfuckers, and we keep rocking.\u201d As for Brown\u2019s drug intake, Gary tells him, \u201cLet\u2019s just say Bobby was a fucking lightweight when it came to drugs. He could not . . . we used to pass Bobby by lapping him. Trust me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the course of making the film, Macdonald says that he started thinking about how Houston\u2019s tragic path mirrored that of her few peers in the music industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about the three biggest stars of the 1980s\u2014Prince, Michael Jackson, and Whitney\u2014they all died within a few years in very similar circumstances, between the drug abuse, the isolation, and the eccentric behavior. And you think: why is that? That is not a coincidence. I think you can trace all that back to their childhood experience. Their parents had all come from experiencing trauma in the south to the north\u2014the Great Migration, it was called. Their parents were very political and very engaged in black rights. With Whitney, Michael, and Prince, you couldn\u2019t think of three less political people. And there\u2019s a sort of poppy frivolity\u2014the way they were that allowed them to be accepted into the white mainstream world\u2014to all three of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though she is gone, the filmmaker hopes that Whitney<\/em> will help recover the singer\u2019s reputation and remind the world of her incredible gift. For those who were close to her, the project has already helped heal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a lot of people around her, there was a sense of guilt, because they feel like, \u2018Maybe if we\u2019d been more strong with her at the time, maybe confront her drug issues primarily, maybe things wouldn\u2019t have gotten so bad,\u2019\u201d explained Macdonald. \u201cYou get this opportunity with a camera to be this kind of portable psychiatrist couch, to sit with other people. Michael Houston, one of Whitney\u2019s brothers, said to me after interview No. 3 or 4, \u2018We should just do this every month. I\u2019m finding this very therapeutic.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw Pat yesterday, and she said she talked to Michael and to Gary, and they both, through this whole experience of making the film, felt like it was a therapy session, and opened up a lot of stuff. It is very painful for a family to discuss [these subjects], but they are very grateful, in a way, that they have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanity Fair<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Julie Miller, May 16, 2018 In Kevin Macdonald\u2019s Whitney, premiering at Cannes Wednesday, Houston\u2019s inner circle confirm a childhood trauma Houston suffered. Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland) did not set out to break news with Whitney, his heart-wrenching documentary about Whitney Houston that premiered at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3095,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094\/revisions\/3095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}