Cissy Houston, the mother of the late Whitney Houston, does not want Lifetime to proceed with the planned biopic on her daughter's life and even pleaded with production to "please let her rest."
The Houston family issued a statement to ET this week reiterating the objection to the TV movie, which is being directed by actress Angela Bassett and is slated for a 2015 premiere.
"Lifetime has chosen to go ahead with the movie about Whitney in spite of my family's objections," Cissy Houston said. "No one connected with this movie knew Whitney or anything about her relationship with [ex-husband] Bobby [Brown]."
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"In the two years since Whitney's death, many people have stepped forward to speak about their close relationship with her. I find it difficult to believe people who knew and supposedly loved her would participate in a movie about her done by folks who didn't know her. We are exhausted by the continuing misinformation and comments offered by people who did not know her. Please, please let her rest," the statement continued.
The Lifetime biopic, "I Will Always Love You: The Whitney Houston Story," is currently in production and will reportedly focus on the singer's volatile relationship with Brown and the pair's drug-fueled union.
"He was my drug," Houston told Oprah Winfrey in 2009, according to MTV.com. "I didn't do anything without him. I wasn't getting high by myself. It was me and him together, and we were partners, and that's what my high was — him. He and I being together, and whatever we did, we did it together. No matter what, we did it together."
Yaya DaCosta, a former contestant on "America's Next Top Model," is playing Whitney while R&B artist Deborah Cox will provide Houston's iconic vocals.
Bassett, a former Oscar nominee, said a chance to direct a movie about Houston's life was something she could not pass up.
"I obviously had worked with Whitney [on 1995's "Waiting to Exhale"] and, you know, just fell in love with her as the rest of the world did," Bassett said. "And when this opportunity was brought my way, it really was something I couldn't say no to."
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