SOURCE: Marcus Ingram / Getty
It’s unimaginable to lose one family member – let alone two within a three-year time span.
Unfortunately, that’s the story for New Edition frontman Bobby Brown, who lost his ex-wife, Whitney Houston, and their 22-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina, in hauntingly similar tragic incidents within a short period of time.
Now the 47-year-old father is willing to tell all in the wake of the release of his autobiography, Every Little Step: My Story.
He details to Robin Roberts in a 20/20 exclusive how he literally bumped into Whitney Houston at the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards.
“She kept bumping into me, and when I asked her why she said ‘Because I want to,’ and that little attitude – is where it started,” he gushed.
Before the couple even walked down the aisle, Bobby said he found his bride-to-be hunched over, doing a line of coke.
“She wasn’t that. The drugs weren’t her. She did drugs, but drugs didn’t do her,” he explained. “It only made me love her and want to protect her more.”
Regarding the allegations that his bad-boy antics led Whitney to heavy drug use, he said, “It wasn’t me. I take my part, and I take it hard for me even being a part of it.”
Bobby said they would lock themselves in one part of the house and get high, while Bobbi Kristina was being cared for by nannies.
Perhaps this parental behavior planted seeds for unhealthy behavior in Bobbi Kristina later on.
Bobby credits his sobriety to his jail stints, and explains that Whitney’s continued drug use led to their final split.
Years later, Bobby was on tour in Mississippi and Whitney was in Los Angeles when she was discovered submerged in a bathtub in her hotel room.
In retrospect, Bobby connects Whitney’s death to Bobbi Kristina’s demise by one common denominator – (whose name he wouldn’t mention) Nick Gordon.
Bobby explains the relationship with his daughter became strained when he married longtime friend Alicia Etheredge.
Reports of alleged drug use emerged, and Bobbi Kristina’s vulnerable position gave Nick a perfect entry point. Shortly after the two announced they were “married,” Bobbi Kristina reached out to her father, and the two were able to reunite for Father’s Day in 2014.
Their relationship grew so much so that Bobbi Kristina was set to move to Los Angeles to be with her dad. But the reunion never happened.
On January 31, 2015, Nick found Bobbi Kristina facedown in a bathtub in her Georgia home. She was later placed in a medically induced coma by doctors. She remained in that state until she passed away in hospice care on July 26, 2015.
“I told her to let go. It’s okay. You can go be with your mom. The hardest thing I ever had to do in my life was to tell my daughter to let go,” he cried.
“I would’ve went and got her, instead of waiting for her to come out,” he grieved, explaining the two were set to link up out West.
“If I could get those two days back, my daughter would be here. All I want are those two days back.”
The entire case is still tied up in litigation, with a $10 million dollar lawsuit pending against Nick.
One thing’s for sure, no sum of money will ever make up for the grief and pain Bobby carries with him every day.
He told Robin he has never visited Whitney and Bobbi Kristina’s graves, which are side by side in a New Jersey cemetery. “They aren’t there,” he explained.
The two live on in the hearts and memories of their fans and the ones who loved them dearly.
RELATED LINKS
Photos Of Bobbi Kristina & Bobby Brown Through The Years
A Father Mourns: Bobby Brown Speaks Out About Losing Bobbi And Whitney
