Nick Gordon was unofficially part of Bobbi Kristina Brown’s family from the time he was a child, and relatives didn’t seem thrilled when the couple’s romance blossomed years later.
“I am concerned about this new relationship,” Bobbi Kristina’s aunt, Pat Houston, said during an episode of the short-lived reality show starring members of the family.
“Can you not just break away from for just a day or two?” Houston pleaded with her niece. “You can’t breathe without him?”
»MORE: Who is Nick Gordon? Bobbi Kristina Browns boyfriend dies in Florida at age 30
The show, “Houstons: On Our Own,” aired after the 2012 death of Whitney Houston. Just over three years later, Bobbi Kristina died at 22, her plight eerily similar to her mother’s.
Now, five years later, Gordon has died at 30.
“Nick Gordon’s story is an epic tragedy,” said Atlanta attorney Randall M. Kessler, one of Gordon’s legal representatives in the past. “He lived a life that outsiders may have envied but truly he was alone. Until Bobbi Kristina passed, he had a true partner and I do not think he ever recovered, or ever would have recovered from her loss.”
As detailed in “Houstons: On Our Own,” Gordon had known Bobbi Kristina since they were kids. After her mother’s death, they became a couple, creating a visibly uncomfortable vibe.
“No one knew that, from a godson, that you would turn into a boyfriend,” Gary Houston, Pat’s husband and Whitney Houston’s brother, told Gordon during a tense breakfast.
In November 2016, Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford ruled in a $50 million wrongful death civil case that Gordon was "legally responsible" for Bobbi Kristina's death. The ruling emanated from a civil lawsuit Bobbi Kristina's legal representatives filed against him, not criminal proceedings. The ruling followed Gordon's failure to appear in court to answer the charges.
No criminal charges have been filed in Bobbi Kristina's death. She was discovered unresponsive in the bathtub of her North Fulton home in January 2015. That July, after stints in two hospitals and a hospice facility, her family announced her death.
In March 2015, Gordon appeared in a volatile episode of the Dr. Phil show. Afterward, the television psychologist said Gordon had been “high as a kite” during the taping and worried for his safety.
"He was so animated and so emotionally out of control, I thought he could be dead in a matter of days if something doesn't happen," Phil McGraw told "Extra" host Mario Lopez. "I felt like if we did not get him to a structured and supervised environment I felt like his life was in danger."
Gordon had been living in Florida in recent years. His social media feeds have been quiet for some time, but many of his final posts all paid tribute to Bobbi Kristina.
Gordon’s brother, Jack Walker, shared the news and then several family photos in a series of grieving social media posts.
Kessler said his heart sunk when he heard the news.
“This is a tragic ending to Nick’s troubled life,” he said. “I pray he is able to rest in peace.”
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