Singer Dionne Warwick is opening up about the death of her cousin Whitney Houston, revealing to ABC’s Good Morning America that she spoke to Whitney the day she died and said she felt Whitney “had everything in the world to live for.”
“I spoke to Whitney the day that she passed,” Warwick, 71, told GMA’s Robin Roberts on Thursday. “I spoke to her that morning. She said, ‘You’re here, aren’t you? You’re coming to the party, aren’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to be there’ and she said, ‘Thank you, I want you to be here. You’ve got to be here for me.'”
Houston, 48, was found dead in her hotel room on February 11 — the day she was to join Warwick and a host of other stars at a pre-Grammy Awards party thrown by music mogul Clive Davis.
“I spoke to her that afternoon once I landed in L.A. and that was it,” Warwick revealed. “She was so up and ready and happy. She had everything in the world to live for. She had a new film that was an absolute dream to make and do. She was getting ready to go back into the studio to record. She was getting her vocals together.”
Warwick said she is still struggling to cope with the untimely death of the 6-time Grammy winner, whom she called “the little girl I never had.” “It’s very, very surreal. It hasn’t really sunk in yet. I have not had an opportunity to really mourn or completely break down, which I will do, I know that.”
And while the family has gathered around both Cissy Houston and Bobbi Kristina, Dionne admitted that she hasn’t given herself time to mourn or completely break down.
She added that “Saving All My Love” was her favorite Nippy song.
