Bobby Brown says he has a recurring dream involving his late children, Bobbi Kristina Brown and Bobby Brown Jr., where the two are laughing together. Bobbi Kristina, Brown’s only child with the late Whitney Houston, died in 2015 at 22. Bobby Jr., whom he shared with ex-girlfriend Kim Ward, died at 27 in 2020. Both died following struggles with drug abuse.
“I always see them at beaches or in fields,” Brown told PEOPLE before the release of the A&E documentary Biography: Bobby Brown. “They’re running away, but they’re laughing. And they’re always together. I didn’t have many dreams about Bobbi Kris before Bobby Jr. died. But then, all of a sudden – floods of dreams.”
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Bobbi Kristina was found unresponsive in a bathtub on Jan. 31, 2015, with a mix of drugs in her system, just four years after Houston was found in a similar situation before her death. Bobbi Kristina slipped into a coma and died in July 2015. Bobby Jr. overdosed on alcohol, cocaine, and fentanyl at his Los Angeles apartment. He died on Nov. 18, 2020.
“No family, no father should have to go through this,” Brown told PEOPLE. He said his children “were both musicians and loved to sing.” Bobby Jr. and Bobbi Kristina had a “tight” relationship. “They’d get into their little tiffs, but they were thick as thieves,” Brown, 53, said.
Brown now sees speaking out about the dangers of drug abuse as his life’s mission with the help of his second wife, Alicia Etheredge, whom he married in 2012. He is still grappling with the loss of his children today. “I’ve cried, but not how I want to. I really want to just scream to the top of my lungs and cry, but it’s just not there,” he told PEOPLE.
Brown has five surviving children, Landon, LaPrincia, and his youngest with Etheredge, Cassius, Bodhi, and Hendrix. He said they helped him get through his worst days. The dreams with Bobby Jr. and Bobbi Kristina help as well. “That’s enough for a father to feel like God has them,” the singer said.
Biography: Bobby Brown is a two-part series that debuts on A&E on May 30. The series looks at Brown’s battle with drug addiction, his tumultuous marriage to Houston, and the deaths of his two children. Brown was married to Houston from 1992 to 2007, and their marriage was at the center of the 2005 reality series Being Bobby Brown. Houston died in February 2012 at 48.
Brown told Entertainment Tonight it was “really therapeutic” to revisit the darkest periods of his life for Biography. “To go back and remember some of the things that might [have] hurt me, that made me feel less than, it was just good to get it all out. [To] clean it all out and get it all out on the table,” he said. He felt it was essential to “release whatever demons were still locked inside of me” and wanted to start a “clean slate” with Etheredge and his surviving children.
The documentary acts as a prelude to his new A&E series, Every Little Step, which debuts on Tuesday, May 31 at 10 p.m. ET. The 10-part series continues on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET beginning June 7.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse or addiction, please call the National Drug Helpline at (844) 289-0879.
