Whitney Houston’s parents, John and Cissy Houston, both played important roles in her career.
The “I Will Always Love You” singer, who died on Feb. 11, 2012, got her musical talent from Cissy, who was a successful gospel singer and worked with the likes of Chaka Khan and Beyoncé. Cissy exposed Whitney and her siblings to lots of gospel music when they were growing up in New Jersey, as Whitney’s brother Gary told the Associated Press in March 2023.
After Whitney rose to fame, she and Cissy collaborated on duets like “I Know Him So Well” and often performed at concerts together. John, on the other hand, got involved in the business side of his daughter’s career, which reportedly added tension to their relationship. During a September 2009 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Whitney shared that she and her father made peace before he died on Feb. 2, 2003.
Before Cissy died on Oct. 7, 2024, she spoke about mourning her daughter, who tragically died by accidental drowning in 2012.
“I think I was a great mother, and I still do wonder if I could have saved her somehow,” Cissy told PEOPLE in 2013. “I still want her to be here. You know if I could have saved my daughter in any way, I would have. Any way that I could have helped her.”
Here’s everything to know about Whitney Houston’s parents, John and Cissy Houston.
Cissy and John were married from 1964 to 1991
Whitney’s parents met in 1957 and tied the knot in 1964, a year after welcoming Whitney. The former couple had a tumultuous marriage and eventually divorced in 1991.
In January 2013, Cissy told USA Today, “We always loved each other,” but noted that she and John had their challenges.
They shared two children
During their relationship, Cissy and John welcomed Whitney and a son named Michael. They also both had children from other relationships: John had a son, John Houston III, from his relationship with Elsie Hamilton, and Cissy had a son, Gary, with her first husband.
John and Cissy raised their kids in New Jersey in the cities of Newark and East Orange.
In the 2018 documentary Whitney, Gary shared that their family dynamic was complicated when he and his siblings were young. “We stayed with a lot of different people,” he recalled.
Whitney’s half-brother John Houston III died on Jan. 9, 2021. Before his death, John III participated in the Whitney documentary alongside Michael and Gary.
The brothers shared a love of music with their sister, and they both toured with her.
Cissy was a gospel singer
Cissy’s music career began in 1938 when she and her siblings formed a family gospel group called The Drinkard Four, which later became The Drinkard Singers. They frequently sang at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J. and also performed at Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival, per the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
The same year Whitney was born, 1963, Cissy founded the Sweet Inspirations, an R&B/soul group that sang backup vocals for Dusty Springfield, Otis Redding, Elvis Presley and more major artists.
In addition to working with these groups, Cissy was a prolific solo artist and released 10 of her own records between 1970 and 2012. Throughout her career, she won two Grammy awards, both in the best traditional soul gospel album category.
Cissy always shared her love of music with her kids. “We woke up and went to sleep to gospel,” Gary told the Associated Press in 2023.
John served in the army and managed Cissy and Whitney’s careers
Before John’s music business career, he was in the military and worked for Newark mayor Kenneth Gibson. By the ‘60s, he’d transitioned to music and was managing Cissy’s group, the Sweet Inspirations.
The following decade, he discovered Whitney’s talent when she was a preteen singing “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah” at their church. Whitney had success with her eponymous debut album in 1985, and John became her business manager and the CEO of her company, Nippy Incorporated, in 1986. (“Nippy” was his nickname for Whitney.)
John was known as an intense manager and told Ebony in 1990, “I come across to some people as the devil incarnate. I am smart, I learn fast and I’m dedicated to Whitney Houston. It is her career, her money and nobody makes decisions but her.”
John and Whitney had a complicated relationship
In 2002, John’s company, John Houston Entertainment, sued Whitney for $100 million for an alleged breach of contract.
At the time, a source told PEOPLE that the lawsuit “devastated Whitney.” They continued, “She loves her father, and she is crying about it.”
The case was thrown out a year after his death, in 2004, but the situation damaged their relationship in his final years. In September 2009, Whitney went on The Oprah Winfrey Show and revealed that she forgave her father in the end.
“I love my dad, and I knew he was sickly,” the singer said. “People were trying to get money from him. Distract me from him.”
According to Whitney, she and her father didn’t speak for awhile, but when he became ill, she went to visit him at the hospital and said, “Let’s end this right now … You’re my father, and I love you, and I’m going to be here until the end.”
Whitney told Oprah that she and her family had a private memorial, so they could grieve John away from the spotlight.
Cissy and Whitney worked on music together
Whitney and her mother collaborated on music a few times, recording a duet titled “I Know Him So Well” in 1987 and a song called “Family First” for the 2006 Daddy’s Little Girls soundtrack.
Cissy was also present for Whitney’s television debut when the pair performed a medley of Aretha Franklin hits together during an appearance on The Merv Griffin Show, per AP.
In addition to those songs and performances, Cissy is featured in Whitney’s 1986 “Greatest Love of All” music video, which ends with Whitney leaving the stage at New York City’s Apollo Theater and hugging her mother in the wings.
Cissy wrote a book about Whitney
Following Whitney’s 2012 death, Cissy felt that her daughter was being mischaracterized by the media.
“Everyone was writing crap about Whitney,” she told USA Today in January 2013. “I was reading things that weren’t true, and that’s when I decided that I needed to do something.” Cissy took matters into her own hands in 2013 and wrote a memoir about her daughter titled Remembering Whitney.
In the book, Cissy highlighted her daughter’s talent and professionalism and emphasized how loving Whitney was. She also wrote candidly about Whitney’s struggle with addiction, which led to her death.
“I’m angry she died alone, in those conditions,” Cissy wrote in the book. “I’m still mad about that.” According to Cissy, Whitney was unable to stop partying and often “hid” from her mother. “I used to wonder what she was doing at night, where she was,” the singer’s mother wrote.
Cissy said she wrote the book with the intention of letting people know “what a good person [Whitney] was. I want people to know the truth about her, how she really was.”
Whitney’s parents died decades apart
Whitney’s father, John, died shortly after they made amends, on Feb. 2, 2003, at age 82. 21 years later, Cissy died at age 91 on Oct. 7, 2024, while under hospice care for Alzheimer’s disease.
“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We lost the matriarch of our family,” Whitney’s sister-in-law, Pat Houston, said in a statement. “Mother Cissy has been a strong and towering figure in our lives. A woman of deep faith and conviction, who cared greatly about family, ministry, and community. Her more than seven-decade career in music and entertainment will remain at the forefront of our hearts.”
Pat’s statement continued, “May she rest in peace, alongside her daughter, Whitney and granddaughter Bobbi Kristina and other cherished family members.”
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