Whitney Houston's mother Cissy writes in her new book that she doubted from the start whether Bobby Brown was right for her daughter, and adds that Whitney might not have ended up so "deep" into drugs if they'd separated earlier, The Associated Press reports.
"I do believe her life would have turned out differently," Houston writes in Remembering Whitney. "It would have been easier for her to get sober and stay sober. Instead she was with someone who, like her, wanted to party. To me, he never seemed to be a help to her in the way she needed."
100 Greatest Singers: Whitney Houston
In an interview, Houston said she has had no contact with Brown and said she has no reason to reach out to him. "How would you like it if he had anything to do with your daughter?" she asked.
Released today, about two weeks shy of the one-year anniversary of Whitney's death, the elder Houston said she wrote the book so that the people would not believe the worst about her daughter. Houston was found drowned in a hotel bathtub in Beverley Hills, California, last year, with authorities saying her death was complicated by cocaine use and heart disease. While Cissy writes that Whitney – whom she often refers to by her childhood nickname, Nippy – could be "mean" and "difficult," even questioning in her darkest moments whether her daughter loved her, she also remembers her as "almost always the sweetest, most loving person in the room."
As for Brown, Cissy paints him as childish and impulsive, even jealous of Houston's success. In 2005, Cissy visited the couple's home in Atlanta to find the walls spray-painted with "big glaring eyes and strange faces" and Whitney's face cut out of a framed family photo. The next time Cissy returned she came with two sheriff's deputies who helped take Whitney to the hospital.
"She was so angry at me, cursing me and up and down," Cissy Houston writes. "Eventually, after a good long while, Nippy did stop being angry at me. She realized that I did what I did to protect her, and she later told people that I had saved her life."
Cissy says she was "extremely relieved" when Brown and Houston divorced in 2007, and is certain that if Whitney were alive she would still be making music. Cissy also added that she has seen Whitney's posthumous performance in Sparkle, saying she enjoyed it though the "whole movie was hard to get through."
