producer, she produced multicultural movies including Cinderella (1997) and series including The Princess Diaries and The Cheetah Girls. Houston's first studio album in eight years, My Love Is Your Love (1998), sold millions and spawned several hit singles, including "Heartbreak Hotel", "It's Not Right but It's Okay" and "My Love Is Your Love". Following the success, she renewed her contract with Arista for $100 million, one of the biggest recording deals of all time. However, her personal problems began to overshadow her career. Her 2002 studio album, Just Whitney, received mixed reviews. Her drug use and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown received widespread media coverage. After a six-year break from recording, Houston returned to the top of the Billboard 200 chart with her final studio album, I Look to You (2009). On February 11, 2012, Houston accidentally drowned in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, with heart disease and cocaine use as contributing factors. News of her death coincided with the 2012 Grammy Awards (which took place the day following her death), and was covered internationally. An official biopic movie of Houston, titled I Wanna Dance with Somebody, was released in theaters on December 23, 2022. Life and career 1963–1984: Early life, family and career beginnings Whitney Elizabeth Houston was born on August 9, 1963, in Newark, New Jersey. Her mother, Emily "Cissy" Houston (née Drinkard), was a gospel singer who was part of The Drinkard Singers and who later joined the Gospelaires, a popular session vocal group whose name eventually changed to The Sweet Inspirations. Cissy recorded several albums with the group on their own, in addition to singing background for musicians such as Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley, and earned a Grammy Award nomination for the song, "Sweet Inspiration". Her father, John Russell Houston Jr., was an ex-Army serviceman, a Newark city administrator who worked for then-Newark mayor Kenneth A. Gibson and a manager of the Sweet Inspirations. Her elder brother, Michael, was a songwriter, and her elder maternal half-brother is former basketball player and singer Gary Garland. She also had an elder paternal half-brother, John III. Both of Houston's parents were African-American. On her mother's side, it is alleged that Houston had Dutch and Native American ancestry. Through her mother, Houston was a first cousin of singers Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick as well as a distant cousin of