Before the premiere of the July 2018 documentary on the life and death of Whitney Houston, allegations surfaced that her older cousin Dee Dee Warwick molested the late singer as a child and her half-brother Gary Houston. Now Warwick’s sister, “Walk On By” artist Dionne Warwick, is refuting the claim in an interview with Larry King.
“I have tried to refrain from responding to that,” Warwick began before referring to the assertion as “hogwash” and said her sister would “never, ever have done anything to do any harm to any child, especially within our family.” Warwick added she will never “forgive those who perpetuated this insanity” since the news made global headlines earlier this year.
The revelation was made public within the Whitney doc, the Associated Press reports. The claim drew speculation from other family members like the siblings’ mother, Cissy Houston. In a statement to People, Houston said she doubts her daughter would want something so personal shared with the world.
“We cannot reconcile the public’s need to know about Whitney’s life as justification for an invasion of her privacy or the charge against Dee Dee, a charge which neither Whitney nor Dee Dee is here to deny, refute or affirm,” Houston said. “Neither I, Dionne, nor my son Michael who was very close to his sister, and in the film is very candid about their drug use, has ever heard these allegations; we have never heard anything remotely connected to the crimes charged against Dee Dee in the film.”
Watch a snippet of Dionne Warwick’s interview below.
READ MORE: Whitney Houston Documentary Reveals She Was Sexually Abused As A Child