As Whitney Houston’s manager and sister-in-law, Pat Houston spent years acting as an intermediary between the singer and, well, everyone else.

“I’m always the apologist that has to apologize . . . for everything,” Pat explained during a recent phone call. Several years back, as the executor of Whitney’s estate, Pat gave Oscar-winning documentarian Kevin Macdonald unprecedented access to Whitney’s archives.

That decision, she said, wasn’t difficult. Kevin Macdonald, whose non-doc work includes The Last King of Scotland and State of Play, “is to film what Michael Jordan is to basketball. He’s one of the best,” said Pat, who has been entrenched in the Houston family’s life for 26 years. She first met Whitney in 1992 in Las Vegas, where the Grammy winner was performing. Pat was dating Whitney’s older brother Gary, who was singing backup for Whitney at the time.

“She was such a fantastic person,” Pat said. And the documentary seemed like a surefire way to salvage her reputation, after the self-destruction and drug addiction of her final years. Even better, a film could remind the world of Whitney’s incredible vocal talent. “For the past few years, there have been so many stories that have been told about her life that just did not connect with me. And Whitney herself, back in the late 1990s, started doing a documentary. I knew it was something that she wanted to do. And I just wanted to finish it, put it to rest, so that we could celebrate her in the way that she should be celebrated—through her legacy of music. . . . We gave Kevin the keys to the vault to look inside. And he did.”

What proved difficult was the consequence of the documentary: the bombshell allegation that Whitney and Gary were molested as children by their cousin Dee Dee Warwick, the late sister of Dionne Warwick and the niece of Whitney’s mother, Cissy Houston. (In an interview with Vanity Fair in May, Macdonald explained how a haunting suspicion led him to the confession by Gary, who tells Macdonald in the film that the trauma of the alleged molestation was one of the underlying reasons for his drug addiction.) Before the extraordinary documentary premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, Pat found herself again in a precarious Houston-family predicament—having to call Cissy, now 84, and Dionne, 77, to tell them about the film’s bombshell claim.

“It was extremely difficult because there are revelations in there that [Whitney and Gary’s] mother didn’t know about [that] could actually cause division in the family,” explained Pat, who had given Macdonald final cut on the film. Sharing her own complicated feelings about the revelation, Pat said, “I wasn’t quite comfortable [with it] where Cissy or Dionne were concerned because they’re very honorable and lovely people. . . . Then, on the flip side, I had to think about Whitney and Gary. Having been with Gary for 26 years and married to him for 24, I’ve seen a great deal. And I’ve seen a lot of emotions and things that he has had to go through because of his addiction, and also Whitney. So you’re caught between a rock and a hard place. But you know you have to stand by your man, stand by your husband, that’s what I did. I thought about him and I thought about Whitney.”

“There was nothing I wanted to cut out [of the film],” Pat clarified. “The only thing that really disturbed me was the fact that Dee Dee’s name was mentioned. I certainly didn’t have an issue speaking about molestation. It needed to be spoken about. . . . I was very apprehensive about her name being put out there because she has a sister, and Dionne certainly isn’t responsible for anyone else’s actions. She’s such an amazing and phenomenal woman; I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to hear something like that, and my heart goes out to all of them actually. No one wins here. You know?”

“To have to go to them to explain to them what was in the documentary, it was very, very difficult for me,” said Pat. “Probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to experience. But it had to be done.”

When asked about their reaction to the news, Pat said, “It was completely shocking [to them]. As it would be . . . molestation and drug addiction is something that mirrors a lot of family struggles around the world. So it’s very common for folks to have to go through situations like this. It can become an embarrassment in some ways . . . it’s one of those things where people just don’t talk about it . . . and it causes silent suffering. And people are afraid to unmask it. The fears of being judged behind certain situations like this.”

Gary, meanwhile, has called the process of making the documentary “cathartic,” and Pat has seen that side of it as well: “It was a total healing process for Gary. I could certainly see the change because he, after living in that box without saying anything, the box finally opened and he came out. Which is a good thing.”

For Pat herself—who is an executive producer on the film, and has had to relive the trauma of both Whitney’s death and the 2015 death of her daughter Bobbi Kristina repeatedly during the process of making and promoting it—working on Whitney proved painful, cathartic, and painful again.

“I go back to, in the scale of things, nothing is as significant as Whitney being gone. She’s not here. She died at 48 years old. And then her daughter died at 22 years old,” said Pat. In the film, Whitney’s inner circle speaks frankly about the ways that Whitney failed her daughter—bringing her on exhausting world tours where she was surrounded by adults, dysfunction, and addiction when she should have been in school with attentive caretakers and peers.

“There’s a cautionary tale for any parent,” Pat said about the film’s unvarnished final chapter. “You have to watch what you do in front of your children. You have to not just talk to them. You have to teach them. It’s not enough to have children. You have to be there for them and be present in their lives. [As a kid] when you’re sitting and watching and you’re seeing certain things, you just . . . ” Here, Pat took a moment to regain her composure. Whitney’s death, in some ways, was not entirely unexpected, considering her drug use. “The baby is another thing. She was 22 years old when she passed. Twenty-two. That wasn’t expected—not at all.”

Pat hopes that the pain of making Whitney will prove worth it on July 6, when the film premieres. Audiences will likely be surprised just how much Whitney speaks in the film, thanks to a surprising amount of footage capturing the singer backstage, in interviews, and recording in studios—at her best and very worse. “If you really listen to her in this documentary, she’s telling you a lot about herself, period. . . . I just know that I was brought into her life to help her ease the pain that life had brought to her. To help her find the peace that her spirit needed. And I think I did that. . . . I think Whitney would be proud because even in this film, she’s speaking up and speaking out.”

“Whitney, we all loved her because of her gift, and her talent in that voice. She gave her all to all of us, and we should really start now to celebrate her and her music. Because that’s what she loved,” Pat said. At the same time, though, she hopes the film might be helpful as a cautionary tale. “I’m hoping that this film will shed a new light on everything. . . . And I hope that any young kid would look at that and be cautious enough to pay attention and realize that for every action there is a reaction. You know? And to just be careful about the choices that they make in life.”