Angela Bassett may have gotten her way with casting and executive producing the upcoming Lifetime movie on Whitney Houston, but Whitney’s family has some other ideas for who they want to play Whitney in another format.
During a recent interview with BET.com family member Pat Houston revealed some of Whitney’s last wishes and plans prior to her death, one of which was a duets album which Pat says she would still like to see come to fruition, and Pat says she would like to have Whitney’s protege Brandy star as her in the Broadway musical about her life. Brandy has expressed tirelessly her desire to play the role of Whitney in the movie of her life but she was overlooked for the upcoming bio-pic (and probably wouldn’t have participated anyway since the family disapproved).
Pat also touched on her issues with Angela doing the movie without their permission and Deborah Cox singing Whitney’s vocals, peep the details below from the interview.
Photo Source: Lifetime Network from ‘Houston’s On Our Own’
Can we expect more unreleased material?
I am really hoping and wishing for a duets album. It’s something Whitney and I spoke about when she was alive and I want to make sure it happens. Any and everything she wanted to do, I want to make sure that we do it. There are many things that I would consider. I would love to see a Broadway play on Whitney’s life, with Brandy Norwood playing Whitney. Brandy would be perfect on Broadway playing Whitney, in my opinion. But everything is about timing. I would only do something that I know Whitney would want to happen.
Speaking of Whitney’s life story, there’s a Lifetime biopic in the works. Are you supportive of it, or against it?
I’m not for it. Lifetime — not Angela Bassett — but Lifetime did come and ask for our participation in the biopic, and we said no. They chose to move ahead with the project. You can’t stop people from doing what they want to do. I would have hoped that people would have enough respect that when the estate said no to a project, they would stand down. But they didn’t. I hope it takes them where they need to go.
How does it feel with Angela Bassett directing the film, considering she was friends with Whitney?
They were not friends, they worked together. I haven’t spoken to Angela, you know what I’m saying? It’s hard to answer that question because I’m not going to beat up another sister, I refuse to do that. Whatever her reasons are for doing the project, she has to live with that, and I guess she can. But it’s something that we did not agree to doing, and I have to leave it at that. If Whitney were here today, this project would not be happening, let’s just leave it at that. How can you do a biopic without all the necessary information? I mean, really?
How do you feel about Deborah Cox singing Whitney’s vocals for the film?
I hadn’t read anything about Deborah Cox singing Whitney’s vocals. Maybe she’s friends with Angela? I don’t know. Wow. If you have to sing someone’s vocals for a film, especially Whitney Houston, I don’t think I would. Whitney is a true pop culture icon. I don’t understand the reasoning behind it. I, personally, think it’s quite strange. But everyone has their reasons to do what they do.
Your family did a reality show soon after Whitney’s death. Despite your best intentions, do you have any regrets about that?
There were no regrets…it was a situation where, with the Houston family, the visits were few and far between. We hadn’t been able to spend a lot of time with Cissy because of work and our lives, Cissy hadn’t been able to spend a lot of time with her granddaughter [Bobbi Kristina], just the family being together. We thought it would be a fun thing to do. We had just lost a loved one and wanted to spend more time together. It just didn’t work. I’m glad that we didn’t do a second season. It feels good to have normalcy, and you can’t have that if everyone is always in your business.
To read Pat talk about how Bobbi Kristina is doing and more check out the full interview HERE
