American musician whose breakthrough album was “Don’t Be Cruel,” 1988. Continually surrounded by a maelstrom, Bobby has been reputedly doing coke, on crack, in fights, getting some girl pregnant. He and his famous wife, Whitney Houston, maintain a steady position on the headlines of the scandal sheets, both for their talent and for their highly visible marital battles.
Growing up in the projects, he says that he was first famous for dancing – and fighting. The youngest boy in a family of six, he was first put onstage by his mom when he was three. He was never shy, not Bobby, and he just kept on winning talent contests. “I don’t think I ever felt like a kid,” he recalls, “I was always around older guys.” He was a baby criminal, following the ways of the ghetto big boys. When he was 11, his friend James was killed in a knife fight, which turned his head around.
Bobby formed his first group, “New Edition,” and they got a recording contract, putting out their first hit song, “Candy Girl,” in 1983. The group member’s average age was 14. “There were little girls chasing around us,” Bobby said, “Little panties thrown onstage. Some of those girls were fast and it broke a lot of us down.” He got $500 and a VCR out of his first recording experience along with a lot of conflict, so he decided to go solo.
At 17, he made a recording deal with MCA – and became a father for the first time, to Landon Brown. His first love and longtime girlfriend was Kim Ward, who gave him another two kids, Laprincia, 1989, and Robert Jr, December 1991.
In 1988, Bobby made “Don’t Be Cruel,” a combination of hip-hop, pop and a bit of funk; the album sold an astonishing eight million copies. Bobby was a big hit in live shows and he performed exhaustively, shows soaked in sex. His dancing was electrifying. In spite of being the baddest dude, he was not happy, but felt alone and heavily down.
In 1989 he met Whitney Houston and he proposed in September 1991. Both wearing white, they married in July 1992. As Houston walked down the aisle in a dress of French lace costing $40,000, 800 guests looked on. Bobbi Kristina, their first child, was born 3/09/1993.
In March 1994, Bobby launched a $10 million lawsuit against his former business managers. The IRS billed him for $2.1 million the same year. He had kin and freeloaders living on his $3 million Atlanta estate. During the prior five years he had brought in some $27 million but was dogged by mismanagement and runaway spending sprees. At the same time his wife had brought in more than $30 million a year, and their dream house in New Jersey in her name was worth some $20 million.
Fights and rumors kept surrounding Bobby. He beat up a patron at a nightclub near Orlando, Florida in April 1995 and was charged with aggravated battery. On 8/18/1995, he kicked a security guard in Los Angeles who had asked him to keep down the party noise. He went into alcohol rehab at the Betty Ford clinic in October 1995. On 1/29/1998, Brown was sentenced to five days in jail, 100 hours of community service, and 30 days in rehab after being found guilty of DUI. DUI charges were brought against Brown after a car accident in Hollywood, FL in 1996; he broke four ribs and a foot. Reports of a stormy marriage continued, but one in which there was obviously strong dynamics of attraction.
In summer 2003 he violated the conditions of his probation from a drunk-driving conviction in Georgia. A state judge ordered his arrest, but Brown, not been seen since July 17, 2003, even missed his wife’s 40th birthday party. He did send a present, however, a large oil portrait of Whitney lying in his arms! A month later, on August 22, he was arrested while dining in an Alpharetta, GA restaurant with his wife, Whitney Houston. He was charged with violating his probation stemming from 1996 drunk-driving charges and sentenced to two weeks in prison, but was released after one week for good behavior. On February 27, 2004, he was sentenced to 60 days in the DeKalb (Georgia) County Jail after his February 20 arrest for probation violation on a 2003 drunk driving conviction. He violated his probation in several ways, including failure to take drug tests and pay fees.
Just days after he was released from prison in Atlanta, Georgia, the singer landed back in court in Boston, MA, this time for defaulting on his child support payments. On March 24, 2004, Brown broke down in court, and with tears streaming down his face, claimed that he would never hurt his children but that he just didn’t have enough money to pay the $63,000 he owed. The judge sentenced him to 90 days in prison. A day later he was released after he came up with the money.
His wife Whitney Houston filed for divorce from him on October 16, 2006 in Orange County, CA. In January 2015, Brown’s daughter with Houston, Bobbi Kristina Brown, was found unconscious in her bathtub at her residence in Roswell, Georgia. The 21-year-old was rushed into North Fulton Hospital where she was placed on a ventilator and was placed under a medically induced coma to stop the swelling of her brain. It was later reported her brain activity was “low”. Brown rushed to his daughter’s side and released a statement to the press requesting them to respect the family’s privacy. On July 26, 2015, Bobbi Kristina died in Duluth, Georgia at the age of 22.
Link to Wikipedia biography