Whitney Houston's Family Reality Show 'Wrong' Way to Grieve?
The late singer Whitney Houston's family is scheduled to premiere their reality television show on Oct. 24, but some mental health professionals seem to think revealing their lives on the silver screen is not the best way to mourn the singer's death.
Houston's 19-year-old daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown will star in the show along with her alleged fiance and adopted brother Nick Gordon, grandmother Cissy Houston, uncle Gary Houston, his wife Pat Houston and their daughter Rayah Houston. While previews of the series seem to focus on the family's concern with Bobbi Kristina and her relationship with Gordon, it seems the family may also be worried about her well being when one scene shows her violently vomiting.
Pat seems to be concerned and reduced to tears as a result of issues with her 19-year-old niece.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"The only way that I can get Krissy on track is to take her to California," she says in a clip.
Gary questions if that will put a wedge between her and their own 14-year-old daughter, another male family friend tells him, "You don't want to lose her."
However, some mental health experts in a New York Daily News report do not seem to think the family mourning Bobbi Kristina's issues is the best way for the 19-year-old to grieve with the loss of her mother.
One anonymous psychotherapist told the publication that the idea to film the show may have been a premature decision.
"There are all kinds of ways to grieve. Look, there's a lot of money at stake and this family knows how to work in the spotlight, but letting cameras into their lives at this time might have been a bit premature," the psychotherapist told the publication. "Then again, perhaps they were hoping to strike while the iron was still hot."
Another psychotherapist who went unnamed in the Daily News report spoke out against the reality television series featuring Houston's family that will air only eight months after her death.
"It's wrong on many levels," the Beverly Hills psychotherapist said, according to the New York Daily News.
However, Dr. Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, was not so quick to agree with the assessments from the other mental health professionals.
"Is it healthy for them? Is this a sick, tasteless thing? Is it disgusting? Maybe. But in an odd way, depending on how this is executed, it may not be categorically sick," Thompson said. "If I had just suffered a loss, I don't know if I'd be comfortable with cameras being shoved into my life like this. But then again, it's not like this reality show is being forced on these people."
