Brown slams Houston family in tell-all book

NEW YORK: In a book filled with explicit stories of sex, drugs and violence, Bobby Brown’s memoir includes allegations about the late Whitney Houston ranging from smoking pot with their then-teenage daughter to having an affair with Tupac Shakur.

In Every Little Step, Brown describes in detail his tumultuous years with Houston and the estrangement from their daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, after their divorce. He disputes reports that he was responsible for Houston’s drug problems and harshly criticises her family and others around her for keeping him from their daughter. Houston died in 2012 and Bobbi Kristina died last year.

The 322-page book follows Brown’s life from growing up in Roxbury, Massachusetts and his rise as a child star with New Edition to platinum-selling solo albums and his time with Houston and his current wife, Alicia Etheredge-Brown. Brown, 47, writes in detail about his “bad boy” behaviour: his many sexual affairs, with Janet Jackson and Madonna among his alleged partners; about his drug problems, which he says are now behind him; and his encounters with the law. But he also pushes back against allegations he was a corrupting influence on Houston. He writes she was using cocaine before he was and continued to use drugs after he had cleaned up. He contends she did her “share of cheating” with “quite a few of the producers and artists” she worked with and names one ex-lover, the late Tupac Shakur.

Brown’s daughter from his relationship with Kim Ward, LaPrincia Brown, alleges in the book Houston smoked pot with Bobbi Kristina. Brown has feuded with Houston’s mother and other in-laws and alleges a public “orchestration” designed to keep him from Bobbi Kristina and seal his “nefarious” reputation. Responding to “the offensive, pointing fingers” at him, he writes, “Both Whitney and Kristi had been lost on their watch, not mine.” – ANA-AP

Bobby Brown