LOS ANGELES - Their troubles were tabloid fodder and their relationship seemed to outsiders to be a mismatch. But for 14 years, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown publicly professed their love for one another. The couple’s tumultuous marriage appears to be coming to an end. Houston filed papers in Orange County Superior Court on Friday requesting a legal separation from Brown because of irreconcilable differences.
Houston’s publicist, Nancy Seltzer, said the Grammy-winning singer would have no comment on the action.
“It is a legal separation. It is not a divorce or a divorce petition,” said Phaedra Parks, an entertainment lawyer in Atlanta who represents Brown.
Houston, 43, asked that she be granted custody of the couple’s 13-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina, and that Brown, 37, be allowed visitation rights. She asked that property rights be determined later.
When the couple wed in 1992, Houston was one of the best-selling singers in history and was a glamorous, pop superstar with a super-clean, princess-like persona. Brown, on the other hand was a sometimes coarse R&B singer with a more street-wise image after rising to fame as a member of the boy band New Edition.
But as the years wore on, it would become hard to determine which one was more troubled. Brown - best known for hits like “My Prerogative” and “Every Little Step” - was arrested numerous times for drugs and alcohol, and once for hitting his wife, while Houston’s own battles with substance abuse sullied her image.
In a 2002 ABC interview with Diane Sawyer, an erratic-sounding and wan-looking Houston, with a profusely sweating Brown by her side, admitted dabbling in drugs but denied using crack, then uttered the now famous phrase: “Crack is wack.”
Houston checked into a drug rehabilitation program in 2004 and again in 2005, announcing the second time that she was also using prayer to help overcome her drug problems. Brown said at the time he was doing what he could to help her.
The couple did separate for a time a few years ago, but their marriage endured, despite rumors and speculation. Their life was put on display last year with Brown’s reality series, “Being Bobby Brown” on Bravo.
But earlier this year, the speculation of a possible split intensified. Brown’s sister made headlines when she alleged in a National Enquirer interview that Houston was addicted to crack.
Recently, Houston has made attempts to clean up her public image. On Tuesday night, she attended a public event with cousin Dionne Warwick and mogul and mentor Clive Davis in Beverly Hills. And she is working on an album of new material; she hasn’t released a record since 2002.
Houston won multiple Grammys in the 1980s and 1990s, including two for the megahit “I Will Always Love You,” from the 1992 film “The Bodyguard,” in which she also starred opposite Kevin Costner.
Her musician husband recently reunited with New Edition for a show at July’s Essence Musical Festival. The show got mixed reviews from the audience when Brown jumped suggestively around the stage and made vulgar remarks about his sex life with Houston.
