Whitney Houston’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, has been laid to rest amid new family drama.
Her father, Bobby Brown, emerged from the funeral service, staring toward the ground before lifting his head up and briefly gazing at the sky.
Dressed in all black, Bobby Brown was one of the first to exit the tension-filled private memorial service for Bobbi Kristina on August 1 at the St. James United Methodist Church in Alpharetta, Georgia.
Bobbi Kristina Brown, the only child of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, died in hospice care July 26, nearly six months after she was found face-down and unresponsive in a bathtub at her townhome on January 31.
Several celebrities showed up for the funeral including filmmaker Tyler Perry, Grammy-winning R&B singer Monica and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed.
In the middle of the service Bobby Brown’s sister Leolah Brown walked out of the church and spoke to reporters gathered outside. She said she was angry because Whitney Houston’s sister-in-law and former manager Pat Houston was speaking at the funeral.
“I told her that Whitney is going to haunt her from the grave,” Leolah Brown told reporters outside the church.
Leolah Brown suggested that the feud between the Houstons and the Browns was far from over.
“It’s just getting started,” she said before going back inside the church.
For years, there’s been a longstanding rift between the families of Bobbi Kristina Brown’s famous mother and father. Bobby Brown briefly appeared at Whitney Houston’s funeral three years ago, saying he and his children were seated but asked repeatedly to move. Bobby Brown said he left because he didn’t want to create a scene, but was upset.
Bobbi Kristina’s death was grimly similar to the way her mother had died three years earlier.
Whitney Houston’s assistant found the pop icon’s lifeless body face-down in a foot of water in her bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel just before the Grammy Awards in 2012. Authorities found prescription drugs in the suite, and evidence of heart disease and cocaine in her body, but determined her death was an accidental drowning.
Her daughter, Bobbi Kristina, was found in the Atlanta home she shared with Nick Gordon, an orphan three years older, whom Whitney Houston had raised as her own. A police report earlier this year described the incident as a drowning, and authorities are investigating her death.
Relations between Nick Gordon and other relatives have soured over the past few years, especially after Bobbi Kristina Brown was hospitalized. A protective order barred him from being within 200 feet of Pat Houston. And a feud erupted over whether Nick Gordon could visit Bobbi Kristina Brown while she stayed in the hospital.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said he and his office are interested in reviewing the investigative file to determine whether any charges will be filed.
Leolah Brown said she believes Nick Gordon was involved in the death of Bobbi Kristina Brown.
