In a bold statement on Whitney Houston‘s official page, the late artist’s sister, Pat Houston, decries Lifetime as well as Angela Bassett for their unauthorized biopic. Less than 24 hours ago, Lifetime premiered their biopic of the deceased Whitney Houston, and from the official statement it seemed like not only was the special unapproved by Houston’s family, but Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston’s mother, specifically asked Lifetime not to make the movie. “We have dealt with her every emotion from the day she was born until the day she died,” Pat writes, “which gives us absolute position and absolute authority as a family to feel the way we do about her legacy. We matter. We’re still here.”
She goes on to call out Angela Bassett, who was Whitney’s co-star on Waiting to Exhale, accusing her of misusing the term “friendship”. Bassett helped to push the project along, adding legitimacy with the claim that she was a good friend of Whitney’s, which allowed production to continue. The biopic was largely from the perspective of Bobby Brown, Whitney’s ex-husband, and in the statement the biopic was referred to as being particularly “unloving” towards the late singer.
Continuing to slam Lifetime, the statement claims that “Lifetime is notorious for making bad biopics of deceased celebrities […] brace yourself for the worst.” She doesn’t cite other made for TV movies, but Lifetime has done many post humors biopics on other artists like Aaliyah and Brittany Murphy, so it can be inferred she is referring to those. Pat goes on to say that “Never would Whitney allow her story to be told by an inexperienced team and how naive of anyone to think otherwise, unless you’re caught up in illusions of grandeur that you can just do anything and people will accept it.”
Her warning to the Whitney Houston’s fan base is clear, and the family’s disapproval at the biopic couldn’t be more obvious. Though Lifetime did not have the approval of Whintey Houston’s family to go on with the production of this video, it seemed to circumvent this illegitimacy and kept the project alive anyway. Hurt and betrayal are evident in the stinging statement, and the cutting end is one simple, separate sentence, which reads, “Truth is violated by silence just as much as by a lie.”