The Truth About Bobbi Kristina And Whitney Houston's Relationship
The relationship legendary singer Whitney Houston had with her daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, is proof that a bond between a mother and daughter is unbreakable. "She brings me a lot of joy," Whitney told ET in 1993. "It's a different thing when you become a mother. It changes your whole perspective on life. You really don't live for you anymore. You're living for your children."
The duo were so in sync, they began to live parallel lives when they both entered volatile relationships. Houston claimed she was abused by her ex-husband, singer Bobby Brown, and her daughter allegedly suffered from physical abuse at the hands of her family friend-turned-fiancé, Nick Gordon.
In an eery twist of fate, the mother and daughter also succumbed to their alleged drug use in the same manner after Houston was found dead in a bathtub at The Beverly Hilton hotel on February 11, 2012. She was 48 years old. Years later, on January 31, 2015, Brown was found unresponsive in a bathtub at her Alpharetta, Ga. home. She was pronounced dead six months later on July 26, 2015 at the age of 22.
Despite the turmoil and strife their lives faced together and separately, there's no denying the intense love they had for one another. Let's dig deeper as we explore the truth about Bobbi Kristina and Whitney Houston's relationship.
Bobbi Kristina was "left to the wolves"
Although they were inseparable during Brown's formative years and during the time leading up to Houston's unfortunate passing, there was reportedly a period when Houston didn't feel she was capable of being a good mother.
According to a close family friend who goes by the name of Aunt Bae, Houston checked herself out of the hospital early after giving birth to Brown and showed up on her doorstep, she recalled in the documentary Whitney (via People magazine). A "hunched over" Houston reportedly asked, "Aunt Bae can you bathe her?'" the woman recalled.
Houston then reportedly left the house, leaving her newborn baby girl in Aunt Bae's care, and didn't return. The woman said she kept Brown for 2-3 months. The little girl reportedly continued to live with her for the first eight years of her life.
"They didn't take care of Krissy," another family friend said when talking about Houston and her ex-husband's involvement in Brown's life. "They just left her to the wolves."
Alleged drug use and dirty diapers
In June 2016, Houston's ex-husband, Bobby Brown, spoke with Good Morning America (via Entertainment Tonight) to talk about their 15-year marriage, including the events that shrouded their July 18, 1992 wedding day. Brown revealed he bucked tradition and took a peek at Houston before the ceremony and was shocked to find her allegedly doing cocaine. In his memoir, Every Little Step (via Newsweek), Brown wrote that Houston indulged in the drug on their special day because she was "nervous."
Her drug use reportedly continued after she gave birth to her daughter in March 1993, and it grew even worse as the years passed by. "She loved that little girl with all her heart, but she was far too sick by the time her baby came to be the kind of mother she needed to be," a family friend told Newsweek. "Sometimes Whitney would be so out of it, the baby wouldn't be changed for days at a time. That's what drugs will do to you, and it doesn't matter how rich you are. An addict is an addict."
Otherworldly chit-chats
The world lost a talented singer and actress after Houston's untimely passing. The legendary artist's impact across the music world and beyond was unparalleled — and that was obvious during the outpouring of love and support from her industry friends who honored her life during her three-hour long televised funeral.
No one was filled with more grief than her daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, though. She was at The Beverly Hilton hotel at the time Houston was found dead in the bathtub, and she was reportedly hospitalized twice in less than a 24-hour period after her mother was pronounced dead, according to TMZ. That same year, the grieving daughter sat down with Oprah's Next Chapter (via The Hollywood Reporter) and told the host, Oprah Winfrey, that she was "doing as good as I possibly can at this point."
Although her family was attempting to help her get through the tough times, Brown would frequently look to her deceased mother for guidance. They continued to have a very close bond, and, according to Brown, they would engage in posthumous conversations. "I can hear her voice telling me to keep moving, baby, I gotcha. She's always with me. I can always feel her with me," Brown said.
She also revealed that the lights in her house would flicker on and off by themselves, and she knew it was her mother's way of contacting her. "I'm like, 'Mom, what are you doing?' I can still laugh with her and still talk to her," she revealed.
Dishing out relationship advice
The abuse that allegedly went on in the Houston-Brown household frequently made headlines, including in December 2003 when Bobby allegedly struck Houston on the left side of her face, leaving her with a bruised cheek and a cut inside her upper lip, Billboard reported.
The "I Will Always Love You" singer also told Oprah Winfrey in a 2009 interview that her ex-husband spat on her during an argument at their home after she had thrown him a birthday party. "He actually spit on me. And my daughter was coming down the stairs and she saw it. That was pretty intense. I didn't grow up with that and I didn't understand why that occurred — [why] he had such a hate for me because I loved him so much," she told the talk show host (via People magazine).
The alleged abuse wasn't enough for Houston to walk away, though. She didn't actually find the strength to end her marriage up until she had a heart-to-heart conversation with her daughter. After Brown stumbled across online photos of her dad with another woman, Brown reportedly told Houston, "Oh, no. ... No, divorce him."
Houston took her daughter's advice to heart and filed for legal separation in September 2006 before filing for divorce in October of that same year.
A fierce protector
While traveling to Hawaii in January 2000, the Grammy award-winning singer's handbag was seized at Kona International Airport, and less than half an ounce of marijuana and three partially smoked marijuana cigarettes were found, according to ABC News. Houston and her then-husband boarded a flight to San Francisco before police could arrest her. However, she was eventually nabbed, and the charges were later dropped.
Following the incident at the airport, Houston arrived back home to be with Brown. "I had to sit with my daughter and ask her, 'Do you want to go to school?' She said, 'Yeah, I do.' I asked, 'Are you afraid?' She said, 'Yeah, I am.' "I said, 'Then we'll go together," Houston told the NY Post.
"If I have to sit in class with you, if I have to sit there in the first grade with you, I'll go so nobody f***s with you," she told the publication as she recalled the conversation she had with her daughter. "And I'll be the biggest first-grader they ever met, to protect my child."
It was this kind of duality in Houston's personality that made her relatable. Although it was apparent that she was struggling with her alleged substance abuse issues, she would still remain her daughter's staunch protector... and vice versa.
They depended on each other
Bobbi Kristina Brown was forced to have many responsibilities that children her age should never have to deal with. At best, her relationship with her mother could be described as co-dependent. A family member told The Daily Beast, "Honestly, Whitney in many ways depended on Bobbi Kristina more than Bobbi Kristina did on her." The source went on to call Brown her mother's "friend, confidante, and her protector" — three hats that she gladly wore.
Following Houston's 2006 divorce, she and her daughter became closer than ever. "They depended on each other, and it was so natural for Bobbi Kristina to take care of her mother in any way she could. She wanted her to be OK more than anything," Ellin LaVar, a close family friend, told the publication.
Sadly, Brown was unsuccessful in coming to her mom's aid on the night of her dealth, although she was staying in the exact same hotel in a room that was booked under Houston's name, TMZ reported.
From mother and daughter to best friends
Their relationship morphed as they grew closer and closer together. They were even photographed hitting the town and partying at various nightclubs with one another. "They were like best friends more than mother and daughter." A source told Us Weekly.
Houston must have noticed Brown was heading down the wrong path at one point, so she attempted to keep her daughter on the straight and narrow. "I think she thought being with Bobbi Kristina would help her control what [her daughter] was doing as far as drugs were concerned," a close friend of Houston's told Newsweek. "She could stop her from going too far or sinking too deep."
However, Houston had a hard to reigning her daughter in, especially since she was battling issues of her own. "The problem was Whitney would be too out of it to really see what was going on or what Bobbi K. was doing," the source continued.
As with any close relationship, the two also had frequent fights that allegedly turned physical. "[Bobbi Kristina] had anger at her [mom] as well. She saw a lot of bad things as she grew up, from both her mom and her dad. They both put that child through a lot," the source revealed.
Bobbi Kristina "took charge"
In the days leading up to Houston's February 2012 death, she and her beloved daughter were in Los Angeles to attend the 54th annual Grammy awards. Sources noticed Brown was fiercely protective over Houston as she attended a press junket, and it was Brown who had to remove her mother from the scene when her "behavior and conversation turned erratic," The Daily Beast reported.
It was far too common for Brown to reportedly step in and save her mother from herself, with friends telling the publication Brown "would often guide the superstar away from situations that would cause embarrassment and push aside people she deemed to have an agenda not in her mother's best interest."
An employee at The Beverly Hilton hotel, where Houston later died, told the website that Brown "pushed" the singer past reporters who were asking her questions. "She was like, 'Mama, let's go. Let's go.' She just took charge," the source stated.
Her devotion to her mother never wavered, and Brown even made a permanent declaration to her mom by getting her initials, "WH," tattooed on her wrist on what would've been Houston's 49th birthday. And that's what we like to call the "Greatest Love of All."