Cannes 2018: Documentary reveals Whitney Houston was sexually abused by Singer Dee Dee Warwick
Whitney Houston, an American singer who was entitled as the most awarded female act of all time by Guinness World Records was sexually abused by Dee Dee Warwick.
A new documentary about Whitney Houston, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival Wednesday revealed the allegations about what Whitney faced in her childhood.
Dee Dee Warwick was Houston’s cousin and the sister of songstress Dionne Warwick. Dee Dee passed away in 2008, four years before Houston died after drowning in a bathtub, which was caused in part by heart disease and cocaine use.
Whitney, which is directed by the Scottish film-maker Kevin Macdonald told Indiewire that it was Whitney's brother Gary Garland, who told Macdonald he had been sexually abused as a child by Dee Dee and believed Houston had also been molested.
The documentary features interviews with many of Houston’s relatives and close acquaintances, two people made allegations against Warwick.
Garland agreed to appear on camera with his story. “He’s saying I was abused by this person and told me, ‘I think she abused Whitney,'” Macdonald said. “Pat Houston [Gary’s wife], who’s here, told me that, yeah, Whitney had told her this but not given any details.”
Macdonald tried to reach out to Houston's family initially about the possibility that she had been abused after watching old footage of the late singer.
“There was something about her discomfort in her own skin, something about the way she presents or hides herself, her lack of overt sexuality,” Macdonald told the publication. “She’s this beautiful woman but she’s very closed in her demeanor.”
He added, “I’d been watching her for several months and saying to editors, ‘There’s something about her that reminds me of something.'”
“That led somebody to tell me, ‘Whitney told me she was abused,’ but they wouldn’t go on camera,” Macdonald said.
“He claims not to know,” he told Indiewire. “I wouldn’t be surprised if [Houston] didn’t tell him. When you hear Mary Jones talking about it at the end, the shame that Whitney had about it, the fact that she couldn’t take to her own mother about it… I can’t imagine she would have gone there, but this is all supposition.”
Whitney will hit the theaters on July 6.
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First published: 17 May 2018, 14:56 IST