Bobbi Kristina Brown is expected to live a long life, but her prognosis remains unclear, an attorney for her father Bobby Brown said on Monday, clarifying the singer’s remarks at a weekend concert that she was awake months after being found unresponsive in her bathtub.
However her maternal grandmother, Cissy Houston, disputes that the 22-year-old is recovering.
“I can say today, Bobbi is awake. She’s watching me,” Brown told concert-goers at the Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie, Texas, according to a video posted on the website TMZ.
But the prognosis for his daughter with the late pop singer Whitney Houston remains unclear, said his attorney, Christopher Brown, in a statement on Monday.
“Doctors have indicated that she will have a long life,” he said in a statement. “However, Bobbi Kristina is presently embarking on a rehabilitation process and the quality of her life will not be known for years to come.” Bobby Brown’s wife, Alicia Etheredge-Brown, noted in the statement that her husband was “in an emotional state” when he spoke at the concert on Saturday.
“He is encouraged by the steps that Bobbi Kristina has made since her hospitalisation,” she said. “She has made it out of ICU, opened her eyes, and started a rehabilitation that will be long and hard.”
Etheredge-Brown added in the statement that during the concert Brown “made an attempt to correct the negative comments he must endure on a daily basis from both family and the public regarding his daughter’s medical condition.”
Bobby Brown added: “We thank everyone that supports Bobbi Kristina and God is hearing our prayers.” TMZ said Bobby Brown’s sister Tina posted on Facebook that Bobbi Kristina Brown “woke up and is no longer on life support.”
The celebrity news website later quoted Cissy as saying comments suggesting that Bobbi Kristina Brown’s neurological condition had improved were untrue.
“Meeting with the doctors and understanding that she can live in this condition for a lifetime truly saddens me,” she told the website. “I have just returned from visiting my granddaughter Bobbi Kristina in the hospital and while she is no longer in a medically induced coma she has a tracheotomy and according to the doctors she has global and irreversible brain damage and remains unresponsive.”
Bobbi Kristina Brown was discovered on January 31 face down and unresponsive in a bathtub in her suburban Atlanta home. Few details about her condition have been released since.
In March, she was transferred from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta to a rehabilitation centre, according to her family.
Houston, a six-time Grammy Award winner and actress, drowned in a hotel bathtub in Beverly Hills, California, in February 2012 at the age of 48. Cocaine and heart disease contributed to her death, according to authorities.
