Bobbi’sBob rites marredmar by greatest hatee of all
Raging kin: Whitney will haunt you!
Will they ever let her rest in peace?
A continuing family feud threatened to turn the funeral for Bobbi Kristina Brown, the 22yearold daughter of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, into a circus.
Paternal aunt Leolah Brown shattered the solemnity of the Saturdaymorning service at St. James United Methodist Church in Alpharetta, Ga., to berate maternal aunt Pat Houston.
“Pat, you know you are wrong for this!” Leolah Brown screamed, according to TMZ, before bouncers — aided by filmmaker Tyler Perry — jumped into the fray and escorted her out of the church.
Leolah Brown’s rage was directed at Pat Houston because she believes the aunt is trying to profit from her niece’s death — by soliciting donations from fans for her foundation.
“I told her that Whitney is going to haunt her from the grave,” Leolah Brown told reporters outside the church, adding that their feud was “just getting started.”
Bobbi Kristina died in hospice care last Sunday, six months after she was found unresponsive in a bathtub in her Atlanta townhouse — a scene eerily similar to the way her superstar mom died three years earlier.
As Bobbi Kristina’s condition grew bleaker in recent months, family ties frayed as the two sides fought over everything from medical care to her $20 million inheritance.
More bickering erupted over Pat Houston’s pro posed “Sweet 16” funeral theme, which disgusted some relatives and elicited very public condemnation from Leolah. Pat is the wife of Whitney Houston’s brother, and Leolah is Bobby Brown’s sister.
Dionne Warwick, Whitney Houston’s cousin, was so against the Sweet 16 theme that she threatened to boycott the ceremony.
Leolah also publicly ac cused Pat Houston of pocketing donations made to her nonprofit for troubled teens. “The Brown family has just learned that Marion Patricia Houston, AKA Pat Houston, is asking for the public to send money to her foundation (The Marion P Foundation) on behalf of my niece Bobbi Kristina,” Leolah wrote on Facebook last week, warning readers not to give “one red cent.”
Amid the squabbling, the only thing the Browns and Houstons seemed to agree on was the massive security presence at the funeral, held in a small town just north of Atlanta.
State troopers, local police and hired bouncers blocked traffic and kept most paparazzi, fans and even passersby from getting close to the church.
The funeral procession, accompanied by two policemen on motorcycles, arrived shortly before 11 a.m. Four men lifted a silver casket from the back of the hearse, as family members, including grandmother Cissy Houston, Pat Houston and Bobby Brown’s wife, Alicia Etheredge, filed into the church.
Following the ceremony, Bobbi Kristina’s body was to be flown to New Jersey courtesy of Perry, who reportedly offered his private jet. There she’ll be buried next to her mother and her grandfather John Russell Houston Jr. in Fairview Cemetery in Westfield.
A memorial service is planned for Monday at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, the site of Whitney Houston’s 2012 funeral.