The late Whitney Houston.

Making a TV reality show may not be the most obvious way to cope with the sudden death of a loved one but most families do not count an icon like Whitney Houston among their relatives.

The series sets the stage for a slew of November tributes to the troubled singer with the golden voice

Less than a year after the I Will Always Love You singer drowned accidentally in a hotel bath tub after taking cocaine, Houston’s teen daughter, her mother, brother and sister-in-law share with the world their struggle to cope in The Houstons: On Our Own.

Difficult as that is, the Houstons say that making the show for cable channel Lifetime has helped rather than hindered the process.

“The show has kept the family close together, (instead of) isolated from one another. We talk about things, we are very open, and we pay attention to the ones who need consoling the most. Doing the show certainly has helped in a huge way,” Pat Houston, Whitney’s manager and sister-in-law,said.

“There are preconceptions about the family that just aren’t true. We are a strong family, a working family, and a typical family. Our family member just happens to be an icon,” she added. “You will see a family that is grieving, that loves one another. You will see a family that is trying to move on.”

The series sets the stage for a slew of November tributes to the troubled singer with the golden voice. Upcoming projects include an official glossy book of photos, a compilation album of Houston’s biggest hits that features a new duet version of I Look To You with R. Kelly, and the November 16 TV broadcast of a special Grammy tribute starring Jennifer Hudson, Usher and Celine Dion.

The TV series delves into some of family’s thorniest issues.

Her daughter and only heir to the estate, Bobbi Kristina, 19, is finding solace in an alcoholic beverage and the arms of Nick Gordon, 23, – the teen Whitney Houston took into the family home when he was a troubled student.

“We were best friends a long time ago, and now I am in love with him,” Bobbi Kristina explains on camera, before telling appalled family members at a dinner that she and Gordon are engaged, and that she is looking to launch a recording career of her own. The notion of putting Bobbi Kristina in the spotlight so soon after her mother’s death and the singer’s messy divorce from singer Bobby Brown, sparked public dismay when the reality show was announced in May.

Bobbi Kristina was hospitalised twice with anxiety in February 2012 after her mother Houston, 48, was found drowned in a Beverly Hills hotel from what officials later said was a combination of cocaine use and heart disease.

But Pat Houston said that reality shows were nothing new for the Houston clan. The singer’s chaotic relationship with Bobby Brown was chronicled in the 2005 TV series Being Bobby Brown and Pat Houston’s life as the singer’s long-time manager was featured on the more recent show Power BrokHers.

“We have always been involved in negotiations for a reality show even when Whitney was alive. So this is nothing new to the family,” she said.