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Now that Whitney Houston has filed for divorce, R&B crooner Bobby Brown has to plan for a future without a rich wife.
I hear that the 37-year-old Brown - who reportedly has been staying in L.A. with "Video Vixen" Karinne Steffans since separating from Houston - would appear on the African-American-oriented cable channel TV One only in exchange for a car.
Producers of the TV One reality series "I Married a Baller" - an inside look at the marriages of sports figures - invited Brown last week to have an on-camera lunch with former Tennessee Titans player Eddie George and his wife, Brown's old friend Tamara (Taj) George of the R&B group SWV.
"When he asked for a car, we actually thought he meant for us to book him car service, and I told the producers to set it up," the show's executive producer, Datari Turner, told Daily News contributor Jawn Murray. "But then I was told that he actually wanted us to buy him a car!"
Brown's longtime friend and occasional rep, Ray Pouncey, told TV One that Brown was new to Los Angeles and didn't have wheels, so a car would be the ideal payment instead of an appearance fee. Brown apparently wanted Taj to formally present the vehicle to him on the show as a gift.
"I was open to it at first and wanted to know what price range he was looking for, because for the standard appearance fee we could have gotten him a 1997 Ford Expo or maybe a 1995 Pathfinder," Datari said. "Maybe even a month-long rental car. But we knew he wanted something new, so we had to pass on booking him."
Looks like Brown overplayed his hand: Even though the standard appearance fee is less than $1,000, he might have used his celeb wattage to squeeze as much as $10,000 out of the show, according to a producer.
Bobby's Atlanta-based attorney, Phaedra Parks, and his manager-brother, Tommy Brown, initially denied that such a conversation took place. Parks later acknowledged that Pouncey had indeed discussed a car for Brown - "but he was joking, and he says it's been taken out of context," she told me yesterday. "Obviously Ray doesn't represent Bobby, and he's not part of his management team."
www.nydailynews.com
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