Whitney Houston's Mom Cissy Dead at Age 91 After Alzheimer's Battle: 'Our Hearts Are Filled With Pain and Sadness'
Cissy Houston has passed away at age 91.
Oct. 7 2024, Published 3:48 p.m. ET
Whitney Houston's mother has died.
RadarOnline.com can reveal Grammy Award-winning gospel singer Cissy Houston passed away at age 91 while receiving hospice care for Alzheimer's disease.
Cissy died at her New Jersey home surrounded by loved ones, her family confirmed in a statement.
Cissy died at her New Jersey home surrounded by loved ones, her family confirmed.
Daughter-in-law Pat Houston announced in a statement to AP News: "Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We loss the matriarch of our family.
"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."
Her family added they are "touched by your generous support, and your outpouring of love during our profound time of grief. We respectfully request our privacy during this difficult time".
She was an accomplished Gospel singer who won two Grammy awards.
Cissy's career began with musical group the Sweet Inspirations with Doris Troy and her niece Dee Dee Warrick.
The group was featured on Van Morrison's instant classic Brown Eyed Girl and sang background vocals on The Jimi Hendrix Experience's Burning of the Midnight Lamp.
In addition to Morrison and Hendrix, the group also worked with Otis Redding, Dionne Warwick and The Drifters, among others.
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Cissy detailed her complicated relationship with daughter Whitney in her 2013 memoir.
After four albums, Cissy left the group to embark on her successful solo career.
She went on to record more than 600 songs across genres and continued to lend her background vocals to a variety of artists, including Beyoncé, Paul Simon and Chaka Khan.
While Cissy made a name for herself as a talented musician, she's arguably equally known for being Whitney's mother.
The mother and daughter had a complicated relationship over the years until Whitney's sudden death in 2012 at age 48.
Whitney was found dead in a bathtub at a Beverly Hills hotel. Her cause of death was ruled an accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors.
Whitney died in 2012 at age 48.
The grieving mother detailed the pair's rocky relationship in her 2013 book, Remembering Whitney: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Night the Music Stopped, which was later slammed by her late granddaughter, Bobbi Kristina, who died in 2015.
Bobbi Kristina blasted the memoir as "disrespectful" for referencing her mother's history with drug abuse, her tumultuous relationship with Bobby Brown and rumors of a gay relationship.
While promoting her book, Cissy spoke out about her daughter's relationship with Brown and said she did not blame him for her death.
She said: "Good mothers and good fathers and good families don't always have great children.
"Bad people have good children. ... It's all their responsibility when they get to a certain age to choose their way.
"She was taught, she knew the way."
Despite her harsh words, she clarified that "she and I were very, very close. She knew I loved her".
In a separate interview, she added: "I miss her so much I can't even express it."
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