Cissy Houston Sends Mixed Messages While Marking First Anniversary of Whitney’s Death

By Suzy Byrne | omg! – Cissy Houston with Whitney in 2010 (Getty Images)As the first anniversary of Whitney Houston’s death rolls around on Monday, her mother, Cissy Houston, has been in the spotlight. However, the messages she’s been sending when it comes to honoring her daughter’s memory have been a bit … confusing.

On Thursday, the 79-year-old blasted her late daughter’s mentor and close friend, Clive Davis, for inviting her to his annual pre-Grammy party, which takes place at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles on Saturday. It was while Whitney was readying herself for that party last year that she drowned in her hotel bathtub. Drugs were in her system when she died.

[Related: Whitney Houston's Life and Career (Photos)]
“I got an invitation to the party – which is the most obscene thing,” Cissy told “Access Hollywood.” “I don’t know why they would want me to come to the party in which she died, you know? Unheard of.”
What she didn’t mention was that her son Gary Houston and his wife/Whitney’s manager Pat had accepted invites to the gala and will be in attendance this weekend, according to Davis’ rep.
Cissy celebrating the unveiling of Whitney wax figures at Madame Tussauds on February 7 (Getty Images)Also unusual? Where Cissy was when she lashed out at Davis, who had been so close to the Houston family that spoke at Whitney’s funeral. The Houston matriarch was at an event held at tourist hot spot Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in Manhattan’s Times Square, where she smiled, clapped, and posed happily alongside of eerie lifelike replicas of her famous daughter that were being unveiled to mark Whitney’s death.
And while Cissy found Davis’ party invite “obscene,” many people are questioning her own decision to write a book, Remembering Whitney, about her late daughter, which touched on Houston’s drug use, failed marriage to Bobby Brown, and bad feelings toward Robyn Crawford, the woman with whom Whitney may or may not have had a lesbian affair.
[Related: Stars Say Goodbye to Whitney Houston (Photos)]
Cissy with Gary and Pat Houston at Madame Tussauds (Getty Images)
One of Cissy’s detractors is none other than Bobbi Kristina Brown, who took her grandmother to task over her decision to write the book in a series of Twitter posts.
"I find it to be disrespect to my mother and me, being her daughter, won't tolerate it,” wrote the 19-year-old. “I know the truth. Her ... oblivious and out of line wrong. But it's all good and nothing but love, my mother taught me better than that."
The fact that Cissy spilled her daughter’s secrets in a book was also magnified in several interviews she gave while promoting it, especially when she said that one of the reasons her daughter was so unhappy during her life was because, “She wanted the life of a normal person.”
A tell-all book seems to go against that, in our opinion – and just adds to all of these mixed messages. But what do you think? Weigh in below.
Cissy with Bobby Brown, Whitney and Clive Davis at the music exec's annual party in 1998 (Getty Images)