As of this date, 21-year-old Bobbi Kristina, the daughter of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, is on life support and, according to the press, her family have gathered around her hospital bed to say their last goodbyes. Such a short and troubled life. It's not known yet what happened, whether suicide attempt or accident.
Firstly, this article does not set out to denigrate Whitney Houston's talent, nor her legacy as one of the most spectacular singers of all time, but a comment on the sad circumstances of her personal life and the resulting emotional fallout of her daughter. Over the past few years there have been indications that Bobbi Kristina was following down the crackpipe-strewn path of her parents, including pictures of her sucking from a bong at a friend's house, snorting lines of coke, and then evidently again using cocaine before her mother's funeral. It's no surprise. In her short life, she had poor role models, Whitney wasn't a role model, nor was Bobby much of a father figure. Kristina had little emotional security and was a lonely and sad child.
We're all familiar with Whitney and Bobby's gritty storyline - their years of drug use, his incarceration for DUI convictions and her stints in rehab. Some suggest it was Bobby who introduced Whitney to drugs, but in an interview with Oprah, Whitney's brother Michael Brown asserts that it was he who first introduced her to drugs. 'You gotta understand at the time ... the '80s ... it was acceptable,' he told Winfrey. 'It's painful ... I feel responsible for what I let go so far.' It's also suggested that Whitney married Bobby to put to rest the rumors that she was having a lesbian relationship with her best friend
Robyn Crawford. Nevertheless, two years after marrying Bobby, she was pregnant with Bobbi Christina.
The television reality show that Whitney and Bobby starred in,
Being Bobby Brown, debuted in 2005 and lasted for nine painful episodes. For the first time, the blinds were open on the chaotic life of the Brown family and if there's any doubt as to why Bobbi Kristina is in the hospital now, toss it aside. Loud, abrasive, rude, drug-addled parents, constantly moving and trashing hotel rooms, lavishly spending, shouting, arguing, cursing or making out and heading to the bedroom for crack. Bobby is a self-centered, hyper-active, alcoholic lout who draws his family into the public limelight at every opportunity, yearning for the fame and recognition of Whitney's magnitude, while Whitney hides behind scarves and sunglasses and shoos people away. Brown even goes so far as to mention sticking his fingers up Whitney's ass 'to dig out a doodie bubble,' while Whitney responds 'that's black love.' Could any show be more excruciatingly bad? In many scenes, a cringing and embarrassed Kristina can be seen trying to make her escape with a handful of her father's money to help balance out the crazy. In another scene, while Whitney and Kristina are shopping for clothes for Kristina, Bobby comes crashing into the shop, knocks and breaks the arm off a mannequin and creates a large kerfuffle yelling for someone to 'COME AND FIX THE ARM ON THIS THANG!' A crowd forms to take pictures as Whitney and Bobby start arguing. Finally, Bobby reels out of the store pissed off at Whitney's lecture. 'FUCK THIS, Y'ALL! I'M GOIN' TO THE BAR!' The episode ends with the focus on Kristina looking wistfully off into the distance, despondently hugging her teddy bear.
In 2009, Whitney admitted in an interview with Mother Confessor Oprah Winfrey that she lived in her pajamas for seven months while doing drugs and Bobby, in another interview, said that he was an alcoholic and also addicted to heroin.
Al Bowman, Whitney's chauffeur for years, has spoken recently to say he witnessed Bobby and Whitney get wasted almost daily in the back of the limo, but a pivotal point for him came when he saw them smoking crack cocaine in front of a five-year old Kristina. Bowman also took Whitney trolling into the dark neighborhoods where she met up with her crack dealers where estimates have it she blew millions and millions of dollars on her habit. That Kristina was able to survive the chaos of her parents' relationship is nothing short of miraculous.
In 2012, soon after the death of Whitney, the Houston family were again filmed in another reality show,
The Houstons: On Our Own which thankfully was cancelled after one season and which thankfully did not include Bobby Brown. Mostly, the show centered around Bobbi Kristina's erratic behavior, her self-medication after the death of her mother, and her turbulent relationship with her adopted brother/boyfriend Nick Gordon. Bobbi, after watching these tedious television shows, it's obvious why you didn't want to be here anymore.
