WHITNEY'S DARK SECRET

A new documentary on the pop icon drops a bombshell – she was sexually abused as a child by her cousin

- Lavern De Vries

SHE was the gospel singer who became a global pop powerhouse – a star with a heavenly voice who helped pave the way for generations of black women. Some say without Whitney Houston there’d be no Beyoncé – such was her clout in the industry.

So why did a woman who seemed to have everything going for her end up self-destructing in such a brutal way? This is the question that drove an award winning filmmaker in search of answers – and led him to discover a dark secret that haunted the singer all her life.

Scottish director Kevin Macdonald’s documentary, Whitney, was one of the stand-out productions at the recent Cannes Film Festival and gives new insight into a woman who could sing like an angel yet was plagued by demons.

Childhood abuse at the hands of her cousin, Dee Dee Warwick – younger sister of soul singer Dionne Warwick – goes a long way to explain why Whitney burnt out so spectacularly. Here’s more about what’s bound to be one of the most-talked-about documentaries of the year.

A SHAKY START

Kevin didn’t set out to make a controversial film on the queen of pop.

The filmmaker – whose gritty 2006 drama The Last King of Scotland, about Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, won Forest Whitaker his best actor Oscar – dismissed the idea when he was first approached.

“My immediate response was, ‘I’m not really interested in Whitney Houston’,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

But he had a change of heart when he struck up a conversation with Whitney’s agent, Nicole David. “She said to me, ‘The thing is, I loved her so much, but I still don’t understand what happened to her family.’ That was the key for me.”