Pat Houston claims the family was planning an "intervention" at the time niece Bobbi Kristina Brown was found face down and unresponsive in the bathtub of the home she shared with boyfriend Nick Gordon.

In the first interview she has granted since Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown's daughter died under hospice care in late July, Pat told Entertainment Tonight, "When we really found out that Krissy was in trouble [with drugs], we were really making plans to do something about it."

Whitney Houston's sister-in-law adds the family was feverishly working behind the scenes to have Bobbi Kristina admitted to a California rehab facility, but all their actions "came too late."

Bobbi Kristina has since been buried alongside her mom at a New Jersey cemetery and Gordon has become the central figure in a criminal probe now looking into the circumstances of his girlfriend's death.

In addition, in a wrongful death suit filed by the conservator of her estate Bedelia C. Hargrove, it's alleged Gordon gave his 22-year-old girlfriend a "toxic mixture" in the hours before she had to be rushed to a hospital emergency room.

Throughout her niece's ongoing ordeal, Pat Houston said she was always there for her niece.

"I really tried to show her [that] I'm going to do this to let you know that you don't have to be afraid of anything. I got you,'" she said, remembering a restraining order she once filed against Gordon after he had posed threats to her using gun photos.

She later reflected if there was any one lesson she could now share with her niece it would be, "You have to love yourself. You have to call on people and not allow someone to divide you and then conquer you."

Besides maintaining his innocence, Gordon has since hired famed Florida attorney Jose Baez to represent him.