Whitney Houston ‘abused by Dionne Warwick’s sister Dee Dee’

Whitney Houston was sexually abused by her cousin, family members have claimed in a new documentary.

Family members say Whitney was abused by her cousin Dee Dee Warwick.

Whitney Houston was sexually abused by her cousin and fellow singer Dee Dee Warwick, family members have claimed in a new documentary.

Houston’s family told Kevin Macdonald that Warwick, sister of the singer Dionne Warwick, had been named by Houston as having abused her as a child.

One family member said the abuse made Houston “question her sexual preference” and prompted her to demonstrate that she was heterosexual by ­marrying and settling down.

The disclosure, in the documentary Whitney, could help to clear up some of the mystique surrounding the American singer, who died aged 48 in 2012.

She was found in a bathtub in the Beverly Hilton Hotel and the Los Angeles coroner ruled she died of drowning and the effects of heart disease and cocaine use.

Her 15-year marriage to musician Bobby Brown, with whom she had a daughter, had been peppered with violence and drug binges. For many years, however, the troubled life she led was covered up by Houston and members of her inner circle to preserve the public image of a performer who became one of the most garlanded of all time.

In an interview before yesterday’s premiere of his documentary at the Cannes Film Festival, Macdonald said he had become interested in the project after Houston’s long-time agent ­Nicole David told him she did not “understand what happened (with Houston), she was the most lovely girl”.

According to the documentary, Houston never told her mother, Cissy, about the alleged abuse by Warwick, to whom she was related through her mother. A family member claimed Cissy would have attacked Dee Dee.

The documentary also features an interview with Houston’s half-brother Gary ­Garland, a ­former professional basketball player, who said he had been sexually abused “by a female relative” between the ages of seven and nine. He does not identify the abuser.

Mary Jones, Houston’s aunt, says in the film, which contains material never previously aired, that Houston had told her: “Mary, I was (abused) too. It was a woman.” Ms Jones, when asked if Houston had named the person, replied: “It was Dee Dee ­Warwick.”

Warwick, whose own singing career was overshadowed by the greater success of her sister, died in 2008 when she was 63.

Dee Dee Warwick.

Asked what effect the alleged abuse had on Houston, Ms Jones said “It made her question her sexual preference”, adding that her troubled marriage to Brown had been an attempt to prove she was heterosexual.

Macdonald said his “big ­regret” was he had not been able to persuade Houston’s best friend, Robyn Crawford, 57, to be interviewed for the documentary.

Ms Crawford, a childhood friend and long-term assistant to Houston, is widely rumoured to have been her lover.

In the interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Macdonald said she had “ummed and aahed for about eight months but decided not to do it”. He added that while he had been able to interview Brown, he “actually is not ready to tell the truth for whatever reason”.

Macdonald, 50, who directed the feature film The Last King of Scotland and documentaries on the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games and on Bob Marley, said interviews with Houston’s brothers turned into therapy sessions.

“I’m always amazed by how people will talk for hours and hours about her.

“It’s because there’s something deeply troubling and mysterious about her,” he said.

She had a voice that “communicates emotions so directly, like a shot of adrenaline”.

“For everybody, the answers to the mysteries in your life usually lie in your childhood, your upbringing and your parents,” Macdonald said. “That’s certainly what I felt with her.”

The Times