She was her mother’s daughter.
Bobbi Kristina Houston Brown, the only child of singers Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown died at a Georgia hospice facility on Sunday. She was 22.
Her dream was to become a star, beloved around the world, like her mother, the person in her life to whom she was closest.
In a tragic turn, the way Bobbi Kristina exited the world mirrored the circumstances of her mother’s death.
After being found Jan. 31 face-down and unresponsive in a bathtub in her Roswell, Georgia, home by her friend Maxwell Lomas, her partner Nick Gordon performed CPR. Bobbi Kristina was rushed to North Fulton hospital, where she was placed in a medically-induced coma. She was later moved to Emory University Hospital, and then to a rehabilitation facility, where she remained until June 24 when she was transferred to the hospice facility where she died.
On July 15, TMZ published a photo of a white tent outside the back entrance of the hospice. It was presumably erected so a vehicle could back straight into the tent, thus preventing photographers from taking pictures of Bobbi Kristina’s body leaving the facility.
“Bobbi Kristina Brown passed away July 26, 2015, surrounded by her family. She is finally at peace in the arms of God. We want to again thank everyone for their tremendous amount of love and support during these last few months,” the Houston family said in a statement to People magazine.
When details emerged about the way Bobbi Kristina had been found, the public was gripped. How was it possible, after Houston’s untimely death at age 48, that her daughter could perish the same way, and so close to the Feb. 11 anniversary of her mother’s passing? Bobbi Kristina had just barely begun to live.
Brown was said to have been grief-stricken over the anniversary of the death of her mother. Houston was found face-down in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Feb. 11, 2012.
In an exclusive interview with Fox 5 Atlanta, Bobbi Kristina’s aunt, Leolah Brown, sister to Bobby Brown, described her immediate thoughts when she heard that Bobbi Kristina had been discovered unconscious.
“I was just numb,” Leolah Brown said. “Very numb, because I kind of saw this coming, you know? I really – I saw it. I tried to reach out. I made a statement and told Krissi not to trust anybody and I meant that.”
In May, Bobbi Kristina’s grandmother, Cissy Houston, and Bobby Brown, were named Bobbi Kristina’s co-guardians. She told Entertainment Tonight her granddaughter was “not progressing at all.”
The Browns and Houstons had given conflicting accounts of Bobbi Kristina’s condition since she was hospitalized. In April, Cissy released a statement declaring that while Bobbi Kristina was no longer in an induced coma, she had “global and irreversible brain damage and remains unresponsive.”
Days earlier, Bobby Brown told fans at a Dallas concert, “I can say today, my baby’s awake. She’s watching me.”
Shortly after Whitney Houston’s death, Bobbi Kristina talked about how she was dealing with the loss of her mother in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. The same year, she and her family starred in Houstons: On Our Own, a reality series for Lifetime that consisted of one 14-episode season.
When Bobbi Kristina was 14, Houston split from Brown and a judge granted her sole custody of their only child together. While they were married, Brown was arrested twice for drugs and alcohol. Houston entered drug rehabilitation programs twice. In an interview with Winfrey, Houston lamented the mistreatment Bobbi Kristina had witnessed during the marriage.
After Houston’s death, Brown became estranged from her maternal grandmother, Cissy Houston, and her father. Desperate to reach her granddaughter, Cissy penned an open letter to Bobbi Kristina in 2013, a painfully public entreaty begging for reconciliation.
Bobbi Kristina announced her engagement to Gordon on On Our Own, in 2012, flashing an engagement ring that once belonged to Houston. Members of both sides of her family disapproved.
Bobbi Kristina’s court-appointed conservator filed a lawsuit June 24 against Gordon in Fulton County Superior Court, alleging that Gordon had physically abused Bobbi Kristina, and that Gordon had taken more than $11,000 from her bank account.
The lawsuit, according to CNN, states “on the morning of January 31, 2015, Brown became embroiled in a loud argument with Defendant at her townhome. The loud argument ended and Brown was later found unresponsive and unconscious, face down in a bathtub, with her mouth swollen and another tooth knocked out.”
The Roswell police department had opened a criminal investigation in connection with bruises about Bobbi Kristina’s face and mouth that authorities found when she was taken to the hospital in January. Authorities later concluded that she had suffered the injuries in a car crash days earlier and that they were not the result of foul play. The file from the investigation has been handed over to the Fulton County district attorney’s office, which will decide if criminal charges should be filed, the Roswell police chief told CNN.
Bobby Brown has said though his lawyer Christopher Brown that the two are not, and were never married. Gordon, who was reportedly barred from Bobbi Kristina’s hospital room, changed his Twitter profile picture to a photograph of his arm, now tattooed with Bobbi Kristina’s name.
“Thank you for all your prayers,” he tweeted Feb. 15. “She is a strong person and will pull through this. Continue to pray for her.”
Before she drowned, Bobbi Kristina indicated that she was optimistic about her future. She was trying to launch an acting and singing career, which had stalled in recent years, to follow in the footsteps of her world-famous and much-beloved mother. In 2012, family friend Tyler Perry gave Bobbi Kristina a guest role on his show For Better or Worse. However, the Associated Press reported that while Bobbi Kristina inherited her mother’s genes and her estate, she did not inherit the singing chops that resulted in Houston being christened “The Voice.”
Bobbi Kristina is survived by her father, Bobby Brown, and her grandmother, Cissy Houston.