When a slew of Whitney Houston's high-profile friends and family members pay their respects at a private funeral service at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, NJ Saturday, there could be some underlying tension between Houston's relatives and Bobby Brown, the late star's ex-husband.
"There are family members who felt Bobby drove Whitney into drugs," one source tells Us Weekly. "But now Bobby is clean and Whitney has unfortunately passed. So there's resentment."
Despite a rehab stint in May 2011 for drugs and alcohol, Houston, 48, was "battling her addictions until the end," a source tells Us of the Grammy winner, who was found dead in the bathtub at the Beverly Hilton last Saturday. In a 2009 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Houston said she went from being a "light" drug user to a "heavy" one over the course of her 15 year marriage to Brown, 43. "I wasn't getting high by myself. It was me and him together."
The "Saving All My Love for You" singer even admitted to freebasing cocaine with her husband, father to daughter Bobbi Kristina, 18.
Despite that rough history, the source says, "he and Whitney had a solid relationship even with the separation and divorce."
And contrary to rumors that Houston's family had prevented Brown from seeing Bobbi Kristina following Houston's death, "He was involved in choices for Bobbi, so that seems farfetched that they were keeping her from him. He has seen his daughter."
As he preps for his ex's funeral (to be attended by Kevin Costner, Aretha Franklin, Alicia Keys, Brandy and brother Ray J, mentor Clive Davis, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Kahn and others), "Bobby is very shaken up," the source says.
In concert with band New Edition in Maryland Thursday night, Brown paid another onstage tribute to Houston.
"I'd like to say thank you for your prayers . . .I'd like to say thank you. Period. I'm gonna throw two up for Whitney," he told the crowd. "That's my love Life is life. You have to move on sometimes. I love her like I love God."
