The death of Bobbi Kristina Brown, the daughter of Bobby Brown and late singer Whitney Houston, continues to get more and more complicated.
The most recent development involves Brown’s fiancé Nick Gordon, who was — unbelievably — present at the scene of both her near-drowning and her mother’s death.
Gordon was ordered to appear in an Atlanta court on Friday morning for a wrongful death lawsuit brought against him by Brown’s court-appointed conservator, Bedelia Hargrove, but he failed to show, propelling the judge to find him “legally responsible” for Brown’s 2015 death.
READ MORE: Nick Gordon, Bobbi Kristina Brown’s fiancé, tells all about her final days
“The court finds Nicholas Gordon in contempt of its March 25, 2016 order,” the ruling issued by Fulton Court Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford, Jr. reads. “All of Nicholas Gordon’s pleadings are struck and judgment by default is hereby ordered against Nicholas Gordon.”
The judge decided that since Gordon, 26, had failed to show up in court twice, Hargrove’s accusations have been “admitted through omission.”
The multimillion-dollar lawsuit was brought last year, and it claims that Gordon suspected Brown of cheating on him, and as retaliation, he “gave Bobbi Kristina a toxic cocktail, rendering her unconscious, and then put her face down in a tub of cold water.”
Besides wrongful death, the lawsuit alleges assault and battery in addition to Gordon transferring Brown’s money without authorization.
In January 2015, Brown was found unresponsive at the age of 22, and she stayed in hospice care for seven months before passing away. For a time, she existed in a medically induced coma.
As mentioned, Gordon was present in the home when Brown was found in the bathtub, but he vehemently denies the accusations that he had anything to do with her death.
“The recent lawsuit against Nick is slanderous and meritless,” said Gordon’s lawyers. “Nick has been heartbroken and destroyed over the loss of his love and it’s shameful that such baseless allegations have been presented publicly. Nick has engaged civil counsel and intends to defend the lawsuit vigorously and expose it for what it is: a fictitious assault against the person who loved Krissy most.”
In late April, Gordon appeared on a two-part Dr. Phil special to discuss what happened between him and Brown, and the details of the night of her death. Jennifer Leslie, a reporter for 11 Alive News in Atlanta, was on the scene Friday at court, and said the judge interpreted Gordon’s appearance on Dr. Phil as a snub.
Gordon told Dr. Phil McGraw that Brown turned to drugs after her mother’s death, and he tried his best to steer her in a healthier direction. On the night Brown nearly drowned in the bathtub, Gordon insists that he and a friend tried to give her mouth-to-mouth, attempting to resescuitate her.
“I ran to my room and then I saw my girl on the floor,” he said. “It was so traumatizing. I dropped to my knees and kept giving her chest compressions and blowing into her mouth. I thought she was going to come round but that never happened.”
He insists he was traumatized by witnessing both Brown’s near-drowning and Houston’s death. He saw Houston’s lifeless body on the floor, her lips blue. He says he had enough trouble dealing with that, only to relive it again with his fiancée.
READ MORE: Bobbi Kristina Brown died from combination of drugs, drowning
Gordon went into rehab after an intervention on Dr. Phil last year. He says he is now clean and sober.
No criminal charges have been filed against Gordon as of this writing. Brown’s father, Bobby, has not commented publicly on the lawsuit.