The estate of the late Whitney Houston issued a sharp rebuke against Oprah Winfrey this week following comments the media mogul made regarding a 2009 stage fall involving the iconic singer.

The dispute centers on whether Houston’s tumble during a sound check for Winfrey’s talk show was the result of substance abuse or merely a professional mishap. While speaking Tuesday at the Cannes Lions conference in France, Winfrey recalled the incident, which took place during Houston’s highly publicized comeback appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Winfrey told the audience that Houston fell off the stage because she was “back on drugs” at the time. The media icon further claimed she pleaded with the studio audience not to leak photos of the accident to protect the singer’s reputation.

“I knew that if that story got out … she would be destroyed by that,” Winfrey said during the conference. She noted that while the audience complied with her request at the time, such a secret would be impossible to keep in the current era of social media. The Houston estate wasted little time in responding to these allegations, releasing a statement via Instagram that disputed Winfrey’s version of events.

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