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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Whitney Houston’s Daughter Faces ‘Undue Influence,’ Grandma Says

ATLANTA (CN) - Hoping to remove an "undue influence," the trustees of Whitney Houston's estate want to change the structure of payments to the late singer's daughter.

The trustees of Houston's estate are her mother, Marion Houston, and her sister-in-law and business manager, Emily Cissy Houston. They filed a petition in the Fulton County Superior Court naming Houston's only child Bobbi Kristina Brown, 19, as respondent.

Kristina was born in 1993 to Houston and her ex-husband, the R&B singer Bobby Brown. She is Brown's fourth child.

The trustees say in the petition that Kristina "is a highly visible target for those who would exert undue influence over her inheritance and/or seek to benefit from respondent's resources and celebrity."

The schedule of distributions of Brown's inheritance conflict with Whitney's Houston's "intent to provide long-term financial security and protection for her child," they add.

"Compliance with the provisions of the trust would defeat or substantially impair the accomplishment of the purposes of the trust, which were to provide for the proper maintenance and comfort of the respondent, and to prevent the wasting of trust assets, as

evidence by the trust's spendthrift provision," the petition states.

The five-page document does not go into specifics, but the trustees say that any proposed amendment will still allow Kristina to live comfortably.

Whitney Houston was found drowned in a bathtub in a room at the Beverly Hilton on Feb. 11. A medical examiner listed the cause of death as accidental drowning from heart disease and excessive cocaine use. She had cocaine, Benadryl, Xanax, marijuana and Flexiril in her system, according to the autopsy.

The Houstons are represented by Mark Trigg and Peter Hall with Greenberg Traurig.

Brown is represented by Gino Brogdon.

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