Cissy Houston became a world-renowned Soul/R&B/pop singer. Houston's second marriage also ended in divorce. Aretha Franklin was an honorary aunt of Houston's daughter. In the late 1990s, Houston's daughter Whitney began to struggle with drug addiction. Houston staged several interventions to get her daughter into rehabilitation and recovery programs. On one occasion she obtained a court order and the assistance of two sheriffs to intervene, persuading her daughter to undertake treatment at Hope For Women Residential & Therapeutic Services in Atlanta, Georgia. In her 2013 book, "Remembering Whitney: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Night the Music Stopped", Cissy Houston described
Whitney Houston saw Houston performing with her mother in a New York City nightclub. He convinced Arista's head Clive Davis to make time to see Houston perform. Davis was impressed and immediately offered a worldwide recording contract, which Houston signed. (Houston had been offered deals by recording agencies before--by Michael Zager in 1980, and by Elektra Records in 1981--but her mother declined them on the grounds that Whitney had yet to complete high school.) Later that year, Houston made her national television debut alongside Davis on "The Merv Griffin Show". Houston did not begin work on an album immediately. The label wanted