Whitney Houston felt ‘caged’ by success and fame, pal says: She ‘wanted to walk in malls’

Bebe Winans is feeling sentimental this holiday season.

The singer — who was also a close friend of Whitney Houston’s — remembered the late Grammy winner and her struggles with fame while promoting his Lifetime film, “We Three Kings,” which he stars in and executive produced.

“She was someone who had such a big heart and loved people and wanted to help people, but sometimes felt caged because of her success and her fame,” the gospel singer, 62, told People at the It’s A Wonderful Lifetime Yuletide Event at E.P. & L.P. Rooftop in West Hollywood, Calif., adding that Houston was “a sister, and beyond a sister” in his life.

She “wanted to walk in malls” and “do everything that regular working people do,” Winans recalled, telling the outlet that Houston “sometimes ran away … and her hideaway was our house in Nashville, Tennessee.”

“We’d get a phone call just saying, ‘Is she there? Don’t tell her we called,’ and I’d say, ‘Yes, she’s here. She’s on my couch asleep,'” Winans shared.

“That was the kind of person people didn’t get a chance to see. That was the Whitney that we knew and miss terribly.”

Houston died at age 48 on Feb. 11, 2012. She was found unconscious in the bathtub of her Beverly Hilton hotel suite and was pronounced dead soon after.

The coroner reported that the “I Will Always Love You” singer had accidentally drowned, citing heart disease and cocaine use as contributing factors.

Winans, who previously detailed his friendship with Houston in his 2012 book, “The Whitney I Knew,” also told the outlet about a time when the singer helped him buy a house.

“She came [to the showing] knowing she had something in her purse that was going to allow me to buy the house, because the banks had rejected my down payment because they felt like I was a risk. And she found out about it,” he said.

“On the back porch, she said, ‘This looks like my brother’s house,’ and I was like, ‘You said that about every room we went in,’ and then she reached in her pocket and she put out an envelope, and she gave it to me and in it was $50,000 to pay for what the bank had put on me.”

Winans continued: “When I paid her back, she called and said, ‘You paid me back?’ and I said, ‘I told you I was.’ She said, ‘A lot of people say that!’ That was Whitney.”