Bobby Brown Sues Whitney Houston for Custody, Spousal Support

Bobby Brown is suing ex-wife Whitney Houston and seeking to change the terms of their custody arrangement for their 14-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina.

In court documents filed in Orange County, Calif., Brown, 40, says that financial and emotional problems prevented him from filing a response to Houston’s divorce petition.

“After Whitney and I separated, I had nowhere to go and very little money to live on,” Brown states. “I was, for all intents and purposes, homeless.”

By the end of last year, Brown writes, he was “distraught and depressed” and didn’t understand the importance of responding to Houston’s petition on time. He also says Houston told him she’d give him six months to respond to see if they could work things out.

But from there, things only got worse: Because of his split from Houston, 43, Bravo declined to film a second season of his reality show, Being Bobby Brown. He was later arrested in Massachusetts over a separate child-support issue and spent four days in jail.

(ETOnline, which first reported the news, has posted the documents here.)

When he learned that Houston had sought a default judgment in order to fast-track the divorce and win custody of Bobbi Kristina, he says he was shocked and, “simply put, could not believe it.”

Houston ultimately did win custody, and told the court Brown is “unreliable. If he says he’s going to come, sometimes he does. Usually he doesn’t.” But Brown says in his filing, “I believe I have a wonderful relationship with my daughter Bobbi Kris – a relationship that I would like to see strengthen and grow.”

Brown is seeking shared custody, child support and spousal support, and says he doesn’t believe that Houston has provided a copy of their prenuptial agreement to the court (he says that, although Houston has told him their prenup rules out spousal support, he doesn’t have a copy of the document).

A court date for Brown’s new case has set for June 15.