Bobby Brown performs at the 2019 Essence Festival at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome,in New Orleans on July 5, 2019. He shot to fame in the early-mid 1980s as a member of the R&B group New Edition. He left the band in 1985 for a successful solo career that included such smash songs as “My Prerogative,” “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Humpin’ Around.”

Bobby married singing superstar Whitney Houston in 1992, and their union became known for being a trainwreck due to their self destructive hard partying ways. The couple welcomed their only child Bobbi Kristina Brown on March 4, 1993. Bobby and Whitney divorced in 2007 after 15 years of marriage. Whitney drowned in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub in Feb. 2012, and Bobbi Kristina died in a similar manner in the bathtub of her Atlanta home in Jan. 2015. She was placed in a medically induced coma for six months before passing. Cocaine use was found to be a contritubing factor in both deaths. Bobby also lost his 28-year-old son Bobby Brown Jr. to an accidental drug overdose in Nov. 2020. He has five remaining children.