Bobby Brown breaks down in tears upon hearing news

Bobby Brown, the faded boy band star who spent 15 tumultuous years married to Whitney Houston, broke down in tears Saturday night upon hearing of the platinum-selling diva’s death.
“I love you, Whitney,” Brown said as he prepared to perform in Southaven, Miss. “The hardest thing for me to do is to come on this stage.”
Brown, who had been accused of domestic abuse against the iconic performer, was on a reunion tour of New Edition and began calling relatives as he found out about the death, People magazine reported.
“He could hardly get the words out when he called me,” a relative told the magazine. “He was sobbing, and by the end of the call, I was sobbing, too. He’s beside himself right now.”
Brown and Houston’s 1993 marriage — with their seemingly opposite personalities — stunned the public.

Brown, 42, who is six years younger that Houston, had cultivated a hard-partying, bad-boy image.
Houston, the daughter of a gospel singer who sang in the choir at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, had a squeaky-clean persona. Brown was often blamed for corrupting her, turning her on to the crack, pills and alcohol that eventually sidelined her career.
“He was my drug,” she was quoted saying about Brown. During one infamous episode, Houston locked their daughter, Bobbi Kristina, out of their bedroom so the couple could have sex.
But her assertions that he was never physical were undermined in 2003 when he was arrested in Georgia for threatening to “beat her ass.” The couple separated in 2006 among rumors of infidelity on his part, and in 2008 they were divorced.