Bobby Brown blames his daughter Bobbi Kristina's death on himself and on her former boyfriend Nick Gordon.
Brown discussed Bobbi Kristina's death in a 20/20 interview that aired Tuesday night. Bobbi Kristina, Brown's only daughter with late singer Whitney Houston, died last July at the age of 22 while in hospice care. Bobbi Kristina was put in a medically induced coma, where she remained for months, after she was found unresponsive in a bathtub by her boyfriend Nick Gordon in their Atlanta home. This happened days before the third anniversary of Houston's death.
"We could have been better. We should have been better," Brown said in the 20/20 interview, referring to himself and Houston, who also dealt with substance-abuse issues.
But Brown also blamed Houston's unofficially adopted son Nick Gordon, who later became Bobbi Kristina's boyfriend.
"It's not a mystery to me. The same thing that happened to my daughter is what happened to Whitney," Brown said. Houston's body was discovered face-down in a bathtub filled with water. A coroner's report revealed that Houston was "acutely intoxicated from cocaine" at the time of her death.
"He knows what happened," Brown said of Gordon. "I don't know what happened that night. But he does."
Brown added that Gordon was the only person around Houston and Bobbi Kristina near the time of their deaths.
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Gordon by Bobbi Kristina's court-appointed conservator after her death. In the suit, Gordon was accused of beating Bobbi Kristina, giving her a "toxic cocktail," and putting her face-down in a bathtub, WXIA reported.
In March, the medical examiner's office reported that Bobbi Kristina's death was a result of drowning and drugs. Alcohol, marijuana, and anxiety medication also had a hand in the death, according to the medical examiner's office. The report, however, couldn't prove whether the death was intentional or accidental.
In the 20/20 interview, Brown also revealed the last thing he said to Bobbi Kristina:
"The last thing I told her, I just said, 'Let go.' I said, 'It’s OK, you can go with your mom, daddy'll be all right. I love you. You can rest now,'" he said. "Hardest thing I had to do in my life was tell my daughter to let go…I don't wish that on my worst enemy or any enemy. That is the worst pain in the world."
The 20/20 interview also focused on Brown's continuing struggles with alcohol. His wife, Alicia Etheredge-Brown, told host Robin Roberts about the challenges of keeping the entertainer sober.
"He has good days and bad days," she said. "He prays and he asks for support. When you're living with somebody who's fought so many addictions, and then you see there's still something that is not allowing them to be their best, you want to support them any way you can.
"I'm learning how to be supportive, how not to enable," she continued. "It's a disease, and you have to learn how to handle that."
