Pop icon Whitney Houston died in 2012 at the age of 48. Her mother was also a Grammy-winning singer. Cissy Houston has now passed away at the age of 91.
Emily “Cissy” Houston, the mother of pop icon Whitney Houston, who died in 2012, is dead. According to the family, the gospel and soul singer, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, died in her home in the US state of New Jersey. She was 91 years old. “Our hearts are full of pain and sadness. We have lost the matriarch of our family,” said daughter-in-law Pat Houston. Cissy Houston was a strong, believing woman who cared deeply for her family and her community. She also had a career in the music industry that spanned seven decades.
The famous daughter follows her mother
Cissy Houston introduced her daughter Whitney to music. She herself was a versatile singer. As a child, she performed in a gospel group with some of her siblings. In the 1960s she was a member of the R&B group The Sweet Inspirations. As backup singers, they played with greats like Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin.
As a solo artist, Cissy Houston released a number of albums, most recently “Walk on By Faith” in 2012. During her gospel career, she won two Grammy trophies in the 1990s for the albums “Face to Face” and “He Leadeth Me.”
Strokes of fate in the life of Cissy Houston
Cissy Houston had two sons and daughter Whitney, who became one of the most celebrated US singers with hits such as “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and “One Moment In Time”. But she also made headlines with drug problems and her turbulent marriage to R&B singer Bobby Brown. The news of the artist’s death in February 2012 came as a shock. The six-time Grammy Award winner drowned in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub after consuming cocaine and tranquilizers – aged just 48.
On the first anniversary of her death, Houston’s mother Cissy published a book about her daughter (“Remembering Whitney”). “She was different from what the headlines often portrayed her to be,” she wrote in the book. Her story is that of an insecure girl “who wanted to be loved by everyone.”
There was another stroke of fate. Whitney Houston’s only daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, died just three years later. Like her mother, the 22-year-old was found lifeless in a bathtub with drugs in her blood. She was buried next to Houston in a cemetery in Westfield, New Jersey.
Following Cissy Houston’s death, the family said: “May she rest in peace alongside her daughter Whitney, her granddaughter Bobbi Kristina and other beloved family members.”
Source: Stern
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
