Bobbi Kristina Brown began heavily abusing drugs after the death of her pop icon mother Whitney Houston, her former boyfriend said in a new interview.
Brown did drugs "socially" before her mother's death, Nick Gordon told Dr. Phil McGraw in an exclusive interview, but "it got really bad" after she lost her mom.
"It’s unfortunate but at the time it’s the only way we knew how to deal with what had happened," Gordon said in an excerpt from the interview. The full conversation airs on Thursday and Friday.
Gordon found Brown unresponsive in a bathtub in her Georgia home on Jan. 21, 2015. She died in hospice care in July of that year, at the age of 22.
Related: Ex-Roommate Testifies Bobbi Kristina Brown Used Illegal Drugs
Houston was found dead in an eerily similar manner in a Beverly Hills hotel suite bathtub in 2012. She was 48.
Gordon has had his own problems with drugs and alcohol, he told Dr. Phil, who recommended he go to rehab while Brown was in a coma and he was spiraling out of control.
"I was drinking so much at the time because I could not deal with what was happening to Krissy," he said, using a nickname for Brown. "It mentally broke me — that’s the lowest part of my life right there."
"Rehab was something I needed and I’m thankful I got that opportunity," Gordon said.
A medical examiner ruled in March that Brown died as a result of being immersed in water and a drug intoxication.
But her manner of death remains undetermined, leaving open the possibility of suicide.
The conservator of Brown's estate claims Gordon drugged Brown with a "toxic cocktail" and drowned her in a tub of cold water, according to an amended civil lawsuit filed in August. Gordon's lawyers contend that Gordon actually "tried to save" Brown.
“Regardless of what everybody thinks, I made Krissy and Whitney’s last few years on earth as happy as they would be,” Gordon told Dr. Phil.
