Oprah Winfrey's big get is inching ever closer to its big premiere, but while her sit-down with Whitney Houston's family, including daughter Bobbi Kristina, doesn't air until Sunday, E! Online has a first look at the interview.
Among the family members in line for an emotional outpouring is Patricia Houston, Whitney's sister-in-law and onetime manager. Though obviously devastated by the untimely death, Patricia also made no attempt to hide the fact that she always suspected a premature and tragic end to Whitney's life.
"The handwriting was kind of on the wall," she told Oprah, when asked if she thought drugs would end up taking the superstar's life. "I would be kidding myself to say otherwise."
She also noted that while, at some point in Whitney's life, she feared that the singer's destructive behavior would lead to her untimely passing, she and others truly believed that the danger period had ended.
"If things hadn't changed, but things were changing, things were really changing with her, very much so," she said. "It wasn't about the substance abuse or anything like that relative to the latter days or anything like that, I think it was more of lifestyle.
"I was afraid for other things, lifestyle more so than..." she trailed off. Not letting a tease like that go unanswered, Oprah pressed her on what, exactly, it was about her lifestyle that seemed so threatening.
"I saw her chasing a dream, looking for love in all the wrong places."
Expect more elaboration on that and more this weekend, when the full hourlong special airs on OWN.