NEWSMAKERS

NEWSMAKERS

Family feud evident at Brown funeral

ALPHARETTA, Ga.

The ongoing tensions between the families of the late megastar Whitney Houston and her ex-husband, R&B singer Bobby Brown, erupted Saturday during a memorial service for their daughter, Bobbi Kristina.

Bobbi Kristina, who dreamed of growing up to achieve fame like her mother, died in hospice care July 26, about six months after she was found face-down and unresponsive in a bathtub in her suburban Atlanta townhome.

A long-standing rift between families of the young woman’s famous mother and father broke out into the open at a memorial service for Bobbi Kristina at St. James United Methodist Church in Alpharetta.

Leolah Brown, the sister of Bobby Brown, walked out of the church and spoke to reporters gathered outside. She said she was angry because Pat Houston was speaking at the funeral. Pat Houston is the sister-in-law and former manager for the late Whitney Houston.

“I told her that Whitney is going to haunt her from the grave,” Leolah Brown told reporters outside the church.

She suggested that the feud between the Houstons and the Browns was far from over.

“It’s just getting started,” she said.

Bobbi Kristina’s death was grimly similar to the way her megastar mother had died three years earlier.

Bobbi Kristina was found in the townhome she shared with Nick Gordon, an orphan three years older, whom Houston had raised as her own. Bobbi Kristina referred to him as her husband. A police report earlier this year described the incident as a drowning, and authorities are investigating her death.

‘Downton Abbey’ to get a float in Rose Parade

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.

Maggie Smith’s character on “Downton Abbey” might find the pomp and circumstance uncomfortable, but the PBS show is getting its own float in the Rose Parade, two days before the premiere of its sixth and final season Jan. 3.

PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger made the announcement Saturday at a bi-annual panel for TV critics.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the show’s star Michelle Dockery said she had never heard of the Rose Parade but joked there would be a look-alike of her riding the float.

Snoop Dogg stopped by Italian customs

MILAN

Snoop Dogg has had another run-in with European authorities.

Italian financial police said they stopped the rapper at the Lamezia Terme airport in Calabria on Saturday with $422,000 in cash, well above the limit that can legally be transported across EU borders undeclared. The incident comes less than a week after Snoop Dogg was briefly stopped in Sweden on suspicion of drug use after a concert near Stockholm.

Travelers within the European Union are required to declare 10,000 euros ($11,000) or more in cash.

Associated Press