Decorated Singer Whitney Houston left her loyal fans throughout the world heartbroken when she passed away on Feb. 11. However, autopsy reports revealing that Houston had used several drugs including cocaine before her death threatened to put a cloud over her legacy as a multi-Grammy award winning artist with several chart topping albums.

Gospel Singer and personal friend to Houston BeBe Winans hopes to unveil the New Jersey singer's true nature in his soon-to-be-released book The Whitney I Knew.

The gospel legend and his family forged a friendship with Houston 28 years ago and maintained an open line of communication until her death. Brother Marvin Winans preached at Houston's funeral while he and sister CeCe Winans sang.

Now months after her death BeBe Winans writes that Houston was a devoted friend who loved people and God but was often "defiant" and "unruly."

CP: You talk about going from hearing the songstress on the radio and not knowing her name to having a deep, family-like connection to Whitney Houston. What is that made you to click so quickly and deeply?

Winans: I think there were a couple of reasons -- musically [talented was] one of those reasons and the others were [our joint] upbringing. I knew [she had also sung in church] because there is depth and place that [people who grew up singing in church] pull from. 

CP: You mention over and over in the book that Whitney had a voice that betrayed her gospel heritage. Talk about the distinctness of singing gospel music. What separates it from performing any other style of music?

Winans: I think there's a couple of things that you can relate the difference to. I think there's a depth that comes from church as well but there's a depth also that comes from African Americans.

When you look at different movies, documentaries and history books, singing for us was a way out of depression, a way of escape from a lot things that African Americans had to endure.

Church was a part of the community. You had gangsters that still went to church on Sunday. It was just a part of something we did.

So you can hear that emotion, you can feel that emotion, you can be moved by it because it's not just a lyric. It's an experience. It's something that one way or another we have experienced. So I think she had that. When you're singing something, when it comes from a pure place the masses are moved.

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