Georgia police are investigating Bobby Brown for possible domestic abuse charges, after his wife, Whitney Houston, called authorities on Sunday and claimed that Brown had hit her.

Police who responded to the call said that Houston suffered a cut lip and a bruised cheek. By the time they were on the scene, Brown had left home for the airport. No arrest has been made, but police intend to question Brown in the matter.

While legal trouble has followed Brown for much of the past decade, his eleven-year marriage to Houston had given off an impression of solidarity. She tirelessly defended him during his numerous arrests and recent jail stints. When Brown was freed from a Florida prison in July 2000 after a month-long stretch for a probation violation, Houston waited outside to pick him up. Later that year, the couple co-headlined a concert in Las Vegas, with talk of taking the show on the road, plans that never materialized.

More recently, another probation violation earned him a weeklong stay in a Georgia jail. As part of his early release (he served half of a fourteen-day sentence), Brown was also put under house arrest until the end of October.

Brown and Houston have two children.

MARC W. DOLECH
(December 10, 2003)