Whitney Houston was dubbed 'Illegal' by family and friends

Washington, Feb 21 (ANI): Whitney Houston's friends and family are known to have addressed her as "Nippy" but it has emerged that she was also referred to by another nickname - "Illegal".

Nippy was the name of a cartoon character who constantly got into trouble and that, said the pastor who eulogized Houston at her funeral service on Saturday, is one of the reasons why the singer got her second pet name.

"We called Whitney 'Illegal' because she would just do stuff," ABC News quoted Pastor Marvin Winans as telling 'Good Morning America'.

"Not because she was Whitney Houston the star but because she was this mischievous little girl from New Jersey," he said.

Winans, the Grammy Award-winning pastor of the Perfecting Church in Detroit and close Houston family friend, recounted a moment that symbolized the Whitney, he says, her closest family and friends will miss most.

"The last time she was in Detroit [to film what would be her last movie, the yet-to-be-released 'Sparkle'] ... we have a congregation, there's about 2,000 people in the church, and she's sitting in the second row and she keeps pointing at me like come here, come here," he said.

"Now I'm running the service but this is Whitney, so I go down. We're receiving the offering and she comes and just starts hugging me and kissing me,"

"I'm like, 'Whitney, there's a congregation watching,' but she doesn't care. And then she says, 'Can I run up on stage...?' And she runs up on the stage just being 'Illegal Whitney.'

"It's those crazy things that she would do that would make us laugh and we're really going to miss her," he said.

The 48-year-old singer died February 11 in the bathroom of her hotel room at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles hours before she was to attend a pre-Grammy Awards party there. No cause of death has been determined. (ANI)