Whitney Houston’s mother learned she was attacked during documentary

According to the New York Times, Whitney Houston’s mother, Cissy Houston, was unaware of the alleged sexual abuse of her daughter and her son, pop icon Gary Garland-Houston, until the filming of the latest documentary on the life of the singer, Whitney.

Patricia Houston, Gary’s wife and executive producer of the film, had to reveal the devastating news about the sexual assault allegations against Cissy and inform him that they would be addressed in the film. “It was a profound revelation for her. You think about her, and it’s a little bossy for her to hear – and her kids don’t tell her. It’s quite difficult to deal with,” she told the newspaper.

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The alleged attacker was Dee Dee Warwick, Cissy’s niece and Dionne Warwick’s sister. She was 18 years older than Whitney and allegedly molested the children between the ages of 7 and 9, while their mother was on tour. She died in 2008, four years before Whitney’s death.

The abuse appeared to be secret and the siblings did not want to share it. Kevin MacDonald, director of the documentary, said he was not informed of the allegations until near the end of filming. “I was just getting to the end of editing,” Macdonald told the New York Post. “We worked on it for about 18 months, and then we heard this bombshell, which redefined everything.”

He also believed the assault had a lot to do with the Grammy-winning singer’s drug use. “I don’t think you can explain someone’s life based on a particular event that happened to them. But I think it’s certainly fair to say that that’s perhaps, in my opinion, the biggest contributor to Whitney’s unhappiness,” MacDonald said. “That and the fact that she never talked about it, and no one in the family talked about it and clearly it happened like you learned in the movie.”

Whitney released in theaters on July 6.