10:00

Bobby Brown's good friend, Mike Tyson.

10:02

Two giants of pop culture at

10:04

the time. So untouchable, it seemed

10:06

that the rules no longer applied

10:08

to them. And they were rolling

10:10

so much money that you could light a pile of it

10:12

on fire and tomorrow more would just magically appear in its

10:14

place. There's Bobby in

10:17

his Benz. Drove it to the airport.

10:19

Parked it. Left it. Never went back

10:21

for it. Fuck it. But buy a

10:23

new one. Didn't matter. Bobby Brown. Like

10:25

Mike Tyson. Like Mike Thevis. Had money

10:27

to burn. He had a

10:29

burning libido to match. Now,

10:31

getting his rocks off with a

10:33

suite full of Japanese women. The

10:35

undisputed champ riding shotgun. Wingman style

10:37

that is. The party didn't

10:39

stop. Just like it didn't

10:41

stop at Bobby's Atlanta mansion. But

10:48

Mike Tyson had work to do. He

10:50

had a title to defend. Just hours away

10:52

now. In a fight against

10:54

the latest challenger, Buster Douglas. Tyson

10:57

had the WBC championship belt.

11:01

The WBA and the IBF. Buster

11:03

Douglas just had a goofy name. And

11:06

the odds were overwhelmingly in Mike Tyson's favor

11:08

to win. Just as they always were.

11:11

Still, right now, the night

11:13

before the fight. It was something

11:16

like two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning. Mike,

11:18

Bobby was saying. Man, you gotta quit. You

11:20

gotta go to bed and rest up for

11:22

tomorrow. Quit now? Let

11:25

Bobby Brown have all the fun? Mike

11:28

Tyson wasn't quitting shit. He could

11:30

beat Buster Douglas with a raging hangover and a

11:32

sore dick. Or so he thought. Mike

11:35

Tyson thought wrong. Next

11:37

day, Iron Mike went down

11:39

in the 10th round. When Buster Douglas

11:41

delivered a whopping uppercut. Followed by four

11:43

hard punches to the head. Mike

11:46

Tyson was knocked down and knocked out for the first

11:48

time in his career. Because he stayed

11:50

up too late the night before partying with

11:53

Bobby Brown. The biggest pop star

11:55

in the world. And also, one of

11:58

the world's baddest of bad.

12:00

influences a true bad boy.

12:03

This is what they called him. This is

12:05

what they've been calling him his entire life. 1983,

12:34

Boston, Massachusetts. Bobby Brown felt

12:36

that familiar sensation bubble up from his loins

12:38

as he looked around the room. He

12:41

was surrounded by women, all of

12:43

them bad girls. I'm talking really

12:45

bad. You know the kind. The

12:47

ones you shouldn't be hanging around with, but you

12:50

can't help it. And the attraction was

12:52

magnetic. It was primal. But

12:55

here, attraction between Bobby Brown and

12:57

most of these women was also illegal

13:00

because Bobby was just a

13:02

teenager. And these women were, in many

13:05

cases, much older. Besides,

13:07

carnal desires were forbidden precisely because

13:10

of where they were at the

13:12

moment. Prison. Boston

13:15

PD didn't dare stick young Bobby and lock

13:17

up with adult men. Those

13:19

hard timers would beat this kid alive. Instead,

13:22

they put him in with the women where

13:24

he could sit and think about what he had done. Driving

13:27

a moped without a license. A

13:29

present he bought himself when he and

13:31

the other guys in his R&B group,

13:33

New Edition, scored their first hit with

13:35

Candy Girl and each got $500 in

13:37

return. But right now, he

13:40

wasn't thinking about the moped or the arrest.

13:43

Teenage Bobby Brown was just like Bobby Brown

13:45

at any age. He did what he

13:47

wanted, what he wanted, and everyone else could just fuck

13:49

right the hell off. That was

13:51

his, well, you know. But right

13:54

now, he was thinking about the women here in the

13:56

joint, one in particular, a friend of his sisters who

13:58

was staring him down from a corner. the room. She

14:01

was close to 20, at least. She

14:03

knew what he was thinking about. She could

14:05

read his mind. She led

14:07

him by the hand off to some

14:10

dark corner where Bobby Brown had one

14:12

of his earliest sexual experiences, again, in

14:14

prison with an older woman. In

14:17

a way, Bobby was following his old man's

14:19

advice, working. Because sometimes

14:21

the work you had to do was making the

14:23

best out of a bad situation. Sometimes

14:26

it meant working a room. Sometimes it

14:28

meant working the crowd. Work

14:30

built core memories. Had

14:33

done so for years. 11

14:36

years earlier, in fact, watching James Brown

14:38

on stage at the Sugar Shack over

14:40

on Boilston, right off the common, some

14:42

20 minutes from the Orchard Park projects

14:44

in nearby Roxbury where Bobby called home.

14:47

Some people are baptized in the church. Some

14:49

are washed in the blood. Bobby

14:51

Brown was baptized on a stage at

14:54

just three years old next to Soul

14:56

Brother Number One, a man for

14:58

whom work was practically his middle name.

15:01

For years after, Bobby Brown continued to

15:03

be motivated by the work that James

15:06

Brown in relation put into his show,

15:08

a show in which he invited kids like Bobby on

15:11

stage to dance. Young Bobby

15:13

Brown was now dancing on street corners for

15:15

pocket change. Before he hit

15:17

puberty, he was hitting the weekend talent shows at

15:19

the local clubs. He rolled up

15:21

block parties and challenged anyone with two working legs

15:24

to a dance battle. He had

15:26

confidence on one shoulder and a chip on the other,

15:28

absolutely determined to prove anyone wrong who

15:31

said he didn't have it. But

15:33

he did have it. Just like his father

15:35

had pride every time he gazed up at the

15:38

Prudential building and marveled at his work, or

15:40

how his mother had that hustle, selling dinner plates

15:42

on the side to folks in the neighborhood in

15:45

order to make ends meet. But

15:47

how many people can you sell plates to? Plates

15:50

weren't going to feed six kids on the regular. So

15:52

Bobby Brown's mother opted for her hustle game.

15:57

Ten-year-old Bobby assumed that the new metal

15:59

door installed that their Orchard Park Project's

16:01

apartment was to keep the Jehovah's Witnesses

16:03

out. And he further

16:05

assumed that the flour his mom kept in

16:07

the kitchen was actually flour. And

16:10

it was getting late. His father was

16:12

still at work and his mother was out with friends.

16:15

Bobby was starving. He decided

16:17

to make some fried chicken. He covered

16:19

the chicken in the flour, and then dropped

16:22

pieces into a hot pan coated in oil. And

16:24

when he finished cooking, he ate. First

16:27

one bite, and then another. Soon,

16:31

a strange feeling came over him. His

16:33

heart began to beat a little faster. He

16:35

took another bite and the strangeness intensified.

16:38

And his mind was moving fast, turning

16:40

over on itself. And then

16:42

his mother walked through the door and screamed.

16:46

Bobby hadn't breaded the chicken with flour. He

16:49

breaded it with his mother's cocaine. This

16:53

was how Bobby Brown learned that his mother

16:55

was dealing drugs in Roxbury, by cooking chicken

16:57

as a little kid and unintentionally using the

17:00

drug as an ingredient. The

17:04

hustle, the pride, the work. It wasn't

17:06

without its dangers. Just like growing up

17:09

black, and Boston wasn't

17:11

without its dangers. Boston

17:13

PD came around to the Browns apartment

17:15

looking for a couple of usual suspects.

17:18

The kind that Bobby now understood associated with his mother.

17:22

Bobby's mom didn't want the kids to

17:24

hear anything, so she took the conversation

17:26

outside. Bobby watched from the

17:28

apartment window, as his mom dramatically argued

17:30

with the cops. And then

17:33

watched in horror, as one of the cops lifted

17:35

his billy club and hit his mom right

17:37

in the face. For what? For

17:40

knowing some other dudes she wasn't

17:42

holding. She was clean. At

17:44

least in this moment. The

17:46

police would beat on anyone in Roxbury, even

17:49

the mother of six, was fucked up.

17:52

As was Bobby's mom right now, her

17:54

eyes swelling up as the cops cuffed her and shoved her

17:56

into the back of their cruiser. The danger was that the

17:58

cops were not allowed to be in the car. Danger, the violence,

18:01

it crept closer. There

18:03

was the night Bobby was out with his best friend,

18:05

Jimmy, not in Roxbury, but

18:07

a nearby Dorchester, bored, looking for

18:09

something to do. They

18:11

spotted a couple of bikes leaned up against the building.

18:14

No chains, no locks. Bobby

18:16

grabbed one and Jimmy grabbed the other and they rode

18:18

them back to Roxbury, basking in the

18:21

thrill of it, the thrill of their criminal

18:23

prowess. Until that criminal

18:25

prowess was challenged by a group of other kids,

18:27

looking to steal the two bikes that Bobby and

18:29

Jimmy had just stolen. Bobby

18:31

figured that he and Jimmy could take them. After

18:34

all, they were scrappy, tough. These

18:36

other kids, though, were vicious, coming

18:39

in hot with big swings, hard

18:41

knuckle punches that hurt like hell. And

18:43

then one of them pulled the knife. Fuck

18:47

this. They could have the bikes, but

18:50

it wasn't about the bikes anymore. These

18:52

other kids wanted blood and they got

18:54

it too. From the one wielding

18:56

the knife sliced Jimmy's arm open. Bobby

18:59

tried to intervene, but the next thrust of the knife came

19:01

too quick. The tip of the blade

19:03

plunged straight into Jimmy's chest, directly into his

19:06

heart. Jimmy collapsed.

19:08

The other kids bolted. Bobby

19:10

was left watching the life drain out of his

19:12

best friend's eyes and not being able to do

19:14

anything about it. Losing

19:17

his best friend at such a young age had

19:20

a profound effect on Bobby. It

19:22

motivated him to get out of Roxbury, out

19:24

of Boston. But that meant more

19:27

work. That meant

19:29

traveling to New York City each weekend with

19:31

new addition, playing shows from

19:33

midnight to 4am, every Friday,

19:35

Saturday and Sunday, and then scrambling back

19:38

to Boston on an overnight bus to

19:40

make it to school first thing Monday

19:42

morning. And that hard work

19:45

meant more hits. Cool it now.

19:47

Mr. Telephone Man. Great

19:50

songs. And those hits and that

19:52

attention meant growing up fast. Faster

19:55

than most of the guys in New Edition

19:57

were ready for. Bobby Brown

19:59

was the oddest. man out, increasingly

20:01

motivated by what he wanted, which

20:03

was the spotlight, a solo career,

20:06

an opportunity where he was only answering

20:08

for himself, where he

20:11

didn't have bandmates concerned about his

20:13

increasingly hyper-sexual dance moves on stage,

20:16

where he didn't have to get reamed out

20:18

for showing up late or missing engagements entirely.

20:22

No one was going to tell Bobby how to do his work.

20:25

He was going to do it his way. Show up

20:27

when he wanted. Dance the way he

20:29

wanted to dance. Dance with

20:31

whomever he wanted to dance with. Even

20:34

girls who had other guys on the side. Those

20:37

on again, off again, romios. They

20:39

didn't scare Bobby Brown. He

20:41

was Bobby Brown, for Christ's sakes, from Orchard

20:43

Park. He had it since he was three

20:45

years old. It was all his. So

20:49

he wasn't going to listen to this chick he was dancing with right

20:51

now at a block party, the one who was a little bit older

20:53

than him. He wasn't prison dangerous

20:55

like a sister's friend back in lockup. She

20:58

was still dangerous all the same. And

21:00

she kept telling Bobby that this guy she was kind

21:02

of sort of seeing was on his way over and

21:04

that Bobby should probably split.

21:07

But Bobby wasn't going anywhere. He kept

21:09

dancing. And he paid the other dude no

21:11

mind. That is, until

21:13

the other dude showed up, or rather

21:16

his godly showed up first. As

21:18

the first shots rang out, people scattered in

21:20

every direction. Bobby saw

21:23

him now, the tough guy, sometimes boyfriend,

21:25

heading straight for him, led by the

21:27

muzzle of his gun. Bobby

21:29

hit the ground running. And the boyfriend kept

21:31

firing. And Bobby's heart pounded in his throat.

21:34

He gasped for air as he raced down to

21:36

Roxbury sidewalk. Every muscle in his

21:39

legs burning. And then there

21:41

was another burning sensation. He

21:43

stopped running when he realized he was

21:45

safe. When he looked down, his legs

21:47

were shaking. His sweatpants were covered in

21:49

blood. And there was a hole in his knee.

21:52

The bullet had gone in one side and exited

21:54

cleanly out the other. He limped

21:57

to a nearby hospital. Doctors sewed

21:59

him up. sent him on his way. He

22:01

didn't even tell his mother or his father, and they

22:03

had their own shit to worry about. And

22:05

Bobby Brown, he had work to

22:08

do. We'll

22:14

be right back after this word, word,

22:16

word. Getting

22:22

shot, getting arrested, getting kicked out

22:24

of New Edition, sleeping

22:26

with any woman anywhere, including

22:28

the one he knocked up and who had since given

22:30

birth to his first child. All

22:33

of these things contributed to Bobby

22:35

Brown's larger-than-life image, an image that

22:37

defined who he was to the public as his

22:40

solo career was just getting off the ground. He

22:43

was a bad boy with a badass sophomore

22:45

record, Don't Be Cruel, and

22:47

that record was powered by the huge

22:50

hit My Prerogative, a song

22:52

that flipped a giant middle finger at everyone

22:54

from his boys in New Edition to the

22:56

naysayers who doubted he'd ever amount to anything.

22:59

Not to mention a song that taught

23:01

me and an entire generation of kids

23:03

what the word prerogative meant. Bobby

23:06

knew that not only wasn't his prerogative to do whatever the

23:09

hell he wanted to do, but that the

23:11

public and the people who tried to define you

23:13

as this or that, that they didn't know what

23:15

the fuck they were talking about. It

23:18

was impossible for anyone but Bobby Brown to know

23:20

the real Bobby Brown, at least

23:22

in Bobby's mind. It

23:24

was like that with Whitney, too. Whitney

23:27

Houston, living in that rarefied air,

23:30

just like Bobby in the year 1989. Both

23:33

nominees at the Soul Train Awards were the

23:35

two met for the first time. Megawatt

23:38

superstars standing side by side, Bobby

23:41

in his white silk suit and Whitney in

23:43

a sparkling beaded dress. Although

23:46

she'd had a Ronda 7 No. 1 singles leading

23:48

out to this right now in

23:50

1989, Bobby Brown was

23:52

it, arguably the more dominant

23:55

cultural and musical force at the moment,

23:57

a moment in which Whitney Houston was on the receiving backlash

24:00

from the black community for skewering to

24:02

pop. All that

24:04

said, Whitney had her own

24:06

publicly defined image, just like Bobby did.

24:09

Unlike Bobby, that image was

24:11

not dangerous. Whitney was

24:14

America's sweetheart. She was apple

24:16

pie. And Bobby knew better

24:18

that beneath that polished facade and that

24:20

perfect voice, Whitney Houston was

24:22

as bad as he was. If

24:25

he didn't know just how bad when they began

24:27

dating, he quickly found out on their wedding day.

24:30

Bobby went looking for his bride to be hours

24:32

before the ceremony. His nerves were ramping

24:34

up along with the sex drive. He

24:37

wanted one last quickie before they were pronounced man

24:39

and wife. And he found her

24:41

behind a closed door starting a huge line of

24:43

cocaine. This

24:45

story about Whitney Houston, America's

24:47

sweetheart, lasting rails before her

24:49

wedding day, like the

24:51

story of the horny ghost, comes from

24:54

Bobby's own memoir, which to some is

24:56

going to run counter to the narrative

24:58

that Bobby Brown, the so-called bad boy

25:00

in this relationship, was the bad influence

25:02

on Whitney Houston, not the other way

25:04

around, as Bobby tells it. It's

25:06

been well established that over the years, Bobby

25:09

Brown and Whitney Houston descended it into an

25:11

unhealthy life of hard drug use together, even

25:13

in front of their own daughter. And for

25:15

more on that, you can check out the

25:17

episode we did here at Disgrace-Anne on Whitney

25:19

Houston. That said, there

25:21

are plenty of other incidents that

25:23

weren't speculation. Incidents that were

25:25

caught on tape and now exist online for

25:28

all to see. Incidents that

25:30

paint a very particular kind of

25:32

picture of who Bobby Brown was

25:34

at this very moment. 1994,

25:38

Bobby Brown's 25th birthday party. Two

25:42

years after Bobby and Whitney tied the knot, one

25:45

year after their daughter, Bobby Cristina, was born.

25:48

As soon as they step out of the limo, the

25:50

cameras are flashing, paparazzi calling out

25:53

Bobby and Whitney's names to try and

25:55

get the best shot. Inside the party,

25:57

the music's loud, the drinks are stiff.

25:59

and reporters from MTV and other news

26:01

outlets are pressing the flesh. All

26:04

jockeying to interview what is now the most famous

26:06

married couple in the world, the bad

26:08

boy and the good girl. One reporter

26:11

in particular puts a microphone in front of the

26:13

couple. He says that he heard Bobby's

26:15

mother was recently offered her own talk show. She's

26:18

a riot, the reporter says. Bobby

26:20

furrows his bra. Hold up,

26:22

you wanna call my mom a riot? Bobby

26:25

forms his right hand like a gun, raising

26:27

it to the reporter's head and pretending to

26:29

shoot. And the reporter quickly

26:31

clarifies, she's a riot as in

26:33

she's funny, you know, she's a trip. Oh,

26:36

she's a trip, Bobby says, as if that

26:38

clarifies it for him, as if that makes

26:40

it better, but it doesn't. Bobby

26:43

is clearly offended. This guy

26:45

doesn't know his mom, doesn't know the first thing

26:47

about her. And here he is, with the fucking

26:49

balls to stand in front of Bobby while the

26:52

camera rolls and say that Mrs. Brown is a

26:54

trip. In Bobby's mind,

26:56

it's such condescending bullshit. He

26:59

lets the guy know. My mom is real,

27:01

Bobby says, and she's coming from the heart. And

27:04

if you can't respect that, you shouldn't even be

27:06

here. As Bobby goes

27:08

off on the journalist, Whitney just smiles

27:10

at the camera, looking equal parts embarrassed

27:12

and wanting to get on with answering

27:14

her questions because yes, this is Bobby's

27:16

birthday party, but the reporter wants to

27:18

talk with Whitney right now and Bobby's

27:20

not having it. He doesn't

27:22

break the tension. He doesn't say he

27:25

was just kidding around. Instead, he walks

27:27

away, pissed, presumably though to

27:29

cool off. Only to return moments

27:31

later, interrupt his wife, put his face right in

27:33

the camera with a dead serious, get the fuck

27:35

out of here look, shove the

27:37

cameraman and announce the interview is over.

27:41

That outsized sense of ego and danger, it's

27:44

all there in Bobby Brown's body language. Things

27:47

that he had possessed since he was a little

27:49

kid dancing on Roxbury street corners. Bobby

27:51

had the fame, the money, and now add to

27:54

that the most celebrated singer and one of the

27:56

most beautiful women in the galaxy on his arm,

27:59

Bobby Brown. want the world to see him as bad.

28:02

He wanted to be seen as powerful. But

28:04

when he returned from his honeymoon, a

28:06

fresh scar visible on Whitney's face made

28:09

people talk. And back in

28:11

Boston, he was caught in the crossfire again,

28:14

literally dodging bullets while witnessing yet another

28:16

friend suffer a fatal wound. On

28:21

tour with the reunited new addition, a tour

28:24

in which each member rode on his own

28:26

bus, buses loaded with guns and dope. Bobby

28:29

was so high that he thought his own wife was trying

28:31

to kill him. He couldn't

28:33

point to a specific reason why the thought

28:35

just entered his head and it wouldn't leave.

28:38

He made the bus driver pull over. He ran

28:40

cocaine in one pocket and a handgun in the

28:42

other, hopping a fence and tearing ass through a

28:45

huge field somewhere in the middle of America, running

28:48

fast and the wind blowing through his

28:50

ears. His wife, Whitney, yelling from somewhere

28:52

behind him and the rest of his

28:54

new addition boys yelling, Bobby

28:56

coming up on a house now in Oasis smack

28:58

dab in the middle of this field. He

29:01

made it up the stairs, the front stairs in

29:03

that house where a man now opened the front

29:05

door and stepped onto the porch giant shotgun in

29:07

his very capable hands. Get

29:10

your ass off my property

29:12

or I'll blow your fucking head off.

29:16

The shock of that moment, the aftermath

29:18

of it, it didn't set Bobby straight.

29:21

Neither did the stroke he suffered soon after

29:23

from free racing so much cocaine. It

29:26

wasn't until he was sent to jail again in the

29:29

year 2000, this time in Florida,

29:31

this time for violating conditions of parole

29:33

stemming from a previous DUI that he

29:35

was forced to clean up. Bobby

29:38

thought the whole thing was just bullshit, the

29:41

parole violation. The only reason he was

29:43

being treated like this was because of who he was, Bobby

29:45

Brown, the bad boy, but the

29:48

judge's gavel came down and the cops stuffed Bobby

29:50

in a cruiser to whisk him away for two

29:52

and a half months in the clink. Sitting

29:55

there in the backseat, he slowly

29:57

slid his handcuffed hands down around his ass.

29:59

him under his legs and feet. The

30:02

cops up front were clueless. He

30:05

brought his cuffed hands to the zipper of

30:07

his pants. They quietly undid his fly. And

30:10

then, Bobby Brown, pissed

30:12

all over the inside of the squad

30:15

car. If a bad boy

30:17

is what they wanted, a

30:19

bad boy was what they were gonna get. December

30:31

2003 Bobby Brown and

30:33

Whitney Houston were at

30:35

home. Bobby was sober.

30:38

California sober, that

30:49

is, which means he was drunk, as

30:51

was his wife. And they weren't alone. There

30:54

was another man. Whitney's dealer. Things

30:57

had been undeniably dark inside the Brown

30:59

Houston household as well as out of

31:01

it, like inside that limousine where Bobby

31:04

and Whitney once smoked crack with their

31:06

five-year-old daughter, Bobby Christina, sitting right next

31:08

to them. But things were

31:10

different now. Or at least Bobby

31:12

wanted them to be different. Mostly,

31:14

he just wanted this other guy out of his

31:16

house. He didn't know why Whitney

31:19

was bringing him around. She needed him

31:21

for dope, sure, but why were

31:23

they hanging around with this dude? Bobby

31:25

was not his friend. And Whitney was not

31:27

this guy's woman. She was Bobby

31:29

Brown's girl, number two to his number one.

31:32

So Bobby grabbed the guy by his shirt

31:34

and tossed him around all rag doll style.

31:36

The fuck you doing here? The fuck you

31:38

doing with my family? Bobby

31:41

felt his rage bubble up. And

31:43

then he felt his wife's hands on his back pulling

31:45

him away before he did any real damage. But

31:48

Bobby was out of control at this point, shift

31:50

faced, angry. He spun around, raised

31:53

his hand, and slapped Whitney Houston

31:55

in the face. It

31:58

wasn't long until Whitney filed for legal subsidies. and

32:00

then for divorce. That

32:02

was her prerogative. Bobby left for

32:04

the one-way ticket to somewhere else and a little money

32:06

in his pocket. No car, no

32:09

house, no jewelry, leaving it all behind

32:11

like he left that white Mercedes Benz

32:13

at the airport behind all those years

32:15

ago. Such was the

32:17

mindset of the all-powerful and the untouchable. There

32:20

would be other cars, and there would be other houses.

32:22

There was always more work to do, and more money

32:25

to be made. But

32:28

you can't replace everything. Like

32:30

his Grammy award, his People's Choice

32:32

award, his American Music Awards, all

32:35

of them, according to Bobby Brown, either

32:38

thrown out or sold by Whitney's family in

32:40

the bitter wake of their split. The

32:42

receipts, as it were, the tangible things

32:45

that proved he was the most popular

32:47

entertainer in the world at one time,

32:49

were now lost to time. And

32:51

in time, Whitney would tell her side

32:54

of the story. 2009 The

32:58

Oprah Winfrey Show Whitney Houston

33:00

preparing to stage a triumphant comeback

33:03

America's sweetheart and the queen of

33:05

daytime TV speaking candidly

33:07

in a hotly anticipated conversation.

33:10

Huge ratings, bigger revelations.

33:13

Whitney laid it all out that Bobby

33:15

Brown was jealous of her success. That

33:18

something happens to a man, a particular type

33:20

of man when a woman has that much

33:22

control, that much fame. Fame

33:24

on the grandest scale. Stoked

33:27

by the enormous success of the soundtrack

33:29

to the bodyguard, her soundtrack, the best-selling

33:31

soundtrack of all time by the way,

33:33

released the year that they were married,

33:36

and three years after Bobby Brown's Don't

33:38

Be Cruel was on top. But

33:41

the bodyguard outsold Don't Be Cruel

33:43

in spades. 18 times platinum, more

33:45

than double the numbers that Bobby

33:48

Brown put up. People

33:50

would always love that record, Whitney's record that

33:52

is. People wouldn't always love

33:54

Bobby Brown. A

33:58

few years later, Whitney Houston was dead.

34:01

Bobby and Whitney's daughter, Bobby

34:03

Christina, she died three years after

34:06

that. And then one

34:08

of Bobby's sons, Bobby Brown Jr., died

34:10

shortly after. Bobby

34:12

was distraught. It was one

34:14

thing to lose a former spouse, but

34:16

to lose a child, two children, only

34:19

22 and 28 years old,

34:21

respectively. That was unthinkable. So

34:24

Bobby kept busy. He

34:26

wrote a memoir. He produced TV

34:28

series about his life. He

34:31

worked hard to ensure that he had some hand

34:33

in shaping his legacy. That

34:35

was his job now, because a

34:37

working man is everything. And no

34:39

man wants to work so hard only to find in

34:41

the end that he is a disgrace.

34:45

I'm Jake Brennan, and this

34:48

is Disgraceland. Disgraceland

35:02

was created by yours truly and is

35:04

produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits

35:07

for this episode can be found

35:09

on the show notes page at

35:11

disgracelandpod.com. Subscribe, follow, like, rate, and

35:13

review the Disgraceland podcast wherever you

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35:18

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35:25

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35:31

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35:36

and on YouTube at youtube.com/at Disgracelandpod.

35:39

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