The global superstar was just 48 when her body was found in the bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on February 11 2012 - and an inquest revealed she'd died with cocaine, cannabis and a number of pills in her system.
She'd been the subject of rumours about drug abuse since the late 1990s due to her jittery, erratic behaviour, weight loss and missing scheduled performances.
She got fired from the 2000 Oscars by close friend Burt Bacharach, who cited throat problems as a cover, but she later admitted to having been sacked from the awards ceremony.
Whitney did come clean about her drug abuse in a 2009 interview with Oprah, confessing her weight loss was down to substance use rather than stress, as her publicist had been telling the media.
But what the I Have Nothing singer didn't reveal was her dark family secret - one she'd been struggling to cope with for her entire life.
There was just one person Whitney confided in as an adult, telling her longtime assistant Mary Jones that she'd been abused by a female family member when she was a child.
Speaking to Kevin Macdonald for his documentary Whitney, Mary revealed how she came to find out about her employer's tragic childhood.
"[Whitney] looked at me and said, 'Mary, I was molested at a young age too. But it wasn't by a man - it was a woman,'" Mary said in the film.
"She had tears in her eyes. She says, 'Mommy don't know the things we went through.' I said, 'Have you ever told your mother?' She says, 'No.' I said, 'Well, maybe you need to tell her.' She said, 'No, my mother would hurt somebody if I told her who it was.'
"She just had tears rolling down her face, and I just hugged her. I said, 'One day when you get the nerve, you need to tell your mother. It will lift the burden off you,'" Mary added.
While Whitney never named her alleged abuser, her elder half-brother Gary Garland claimed he had also been molested by none other than their cousin Dee Dee Warwick - the sister of Dionne Warwick, and niece of Whitney's mother, Cissy Houston.
Dee Dee, who died in 2008, had been in her mid to late 20s at the time of the alleged abuse.
"[Whitney] looked at me and said, 'Mary, I was molested at a young age too. But it wasn't by a man - it was a woman,'" Mary said in the film.
"She had tears in her eyes. She says, 'Mommy don't know the things we went through.' I said, 'Have you ever told your mother?' She says, 'No.' I said, 'Well, maybe you need to tell her.' She said, 'No, my mother would hurt somebody if I told her who it was.'
"She just had tears rolling down her face, and I just hugged her. I said, 'One day when you get the nerve, you need to tell your mother. It will lift the burden off you,'" Mary added.
While Whitney never named her alleged abuser, her elder half-brother Gary Garland claimed he had also been molested by none other than their cousin Dee Dee Warwick - the sister of Dionne Warwick, and niece of Whitney's mother, Cissy Houston.
Dee Dee, who died in 2008, had been in her mid to late 20s at the time of the alleged abuse.
"And for those lies to be perpetuated in this so-called documentary film [Whitney], I think it's evil."
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