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Cissy Houston: Whitney just wanted normal life

Feb 6, 2013, 15:01 GMT

Cissy Houston

Whitney Houston wanted a 'normal life', according to her mother Cissy Houston.

Cissy claims the 'I Will Always Love You' singer - who died in February 2012, aged 48 - didn't want to be a world famous star and preferred to live a quiet life away from the glare of the world.

Appearing on British TV show 'Daybreak', she said: 'She wanted the life of a normal person, that's what she wanted really. But it happened and she became a star.'

Quizzed by host Lorraine Kelly about whether Whitney wanted a regular lifestyle, the matriarch responded: 'Yes, that's what she really wanted. She always said, 'All I wanted to do was sing.' But she came and God blessed her. And she was happy about that but only sometimes, I guess.'

Cissy also believes her daughter's life would have been turned out differently had she not married rapper Bobby Brown, because the pair 'were from two different worlds'.

Bobby has been blamed for leading the R&B singer down a road which ended in drug addiction, although Whitney's older brother Michael Houston recently admitted he had experimented with cocaine with her.

Cissy said: 'She just happened to fall in love I guess with someone that really wasn't for her. They were from two different worlds.'

The 79-year-old gospel singer recently came under fire from granddaughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, 19, for 'disrespecting' Whitney with her tell-all memoir about the singer's life, 'Remembering Whitney'.

The aspiring singer tweeted: 'Anything concerning my grandmother's book, I and @nickgordon of course personally have nothing to do with ... I haven't read and won't ... I find it to be disrespectful to my mother and me being her daughter won't tolerate it (sic)'

Cissy has no ill-feeling towards her granddaughter, saying on the programme: 'She's a person and has a mind of her own. And she's grieving.'