The tumultuous life of Grammy award-winning singer Bobby Brown is now the subject of The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But…, a new “unauthorized biography” of the artist’s life.
Initially, the book was a private memoir for Brown to reflect on his volatile 20-plus years in the entertainment industry.
Author Derrick Handspike, a longtime friend and co-writer of Andre Rison’s autobiography, urged the singer to seriously consider transforming his memoir into a no frills autobiography.
The duo’s work resulted in a controversial 233-page intimate look into Brown’s life.
The book chronicles Brown’s life from his childhood, rise to stardom with New Edition, drug problems, relationships, and his explosive 14-year marriage to Whitney Houston.
While excited about the project, Handspike revealed that Brown inexplicably dropped out in the 11th hour, due to concerns about how his family would be affected by the illicit stories contained in the memoir.
“I had heard rumors that Whitney was trying to stop this book from coming out and that she was going to do whatever she had to do to keep it from being published,” Handspike states in book’s foreword. “I then started to wonder if Bobby had been influenced by Whitney not to go through with it. Whitney has been known, is known and will always be known as having a major influence on him. For whatever reason, Bobby, his lawyer and manager were not in a hurry to finalize the agreed upon book release deadlines!”
Despite this setback, Handspike made several changes to the book which legally allowed the go ahead for the project to be published, even without Brown’s final support.
“With all the hard work, time, and dedication to the project and money spent out of my pocket preparing this memoir, I decided to make the necessary changes to release it, Handspike stated. “I made the changes to revise the book so it reads as a biography in lieu of an autobiography.”
Bobby Brown was one of the music industry’s biggest stars throughout the 80s and early 90s.
After departing from the multi-platinum group New Edition in 1986, he scored a massive hit with his seminal 1988 sophomore album Don’t Be Cruel, which went 7X platinum and is a one of the best-selling New Jack Swing LPs of all time.
Bobby Brown: The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But… is published by Down South Books and available now at all major book retailers and www.downsouthbooks.com.
In related news, Brown has revealed that he is part of a new group named Heads of State featuring former New Edition group members Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill.