Insiders say Chris Brown “Dancing With Death”; Detail Drug Abuse & Mental Illness

-blogged by @hshtgmike

New insider reports from Chris Brown’s camp detail the singer’s drug habit and mental illness in an article published to Billboard Thursday morning.

A former employee, who remains anonymous, tells Billboard of a night around this time in 2016. The ex-employee explains Brown had just been on one of his many coke binges, empty Styrofoam cups littered throughout his master bedroom; lean was his comedown of choice.

The doorbell rings for a delivery. “Do your f*cking job!,” Brown yells at one of his security guards who regularly stayed up late at night to check Brown’s pulse. But he was asleep while his partner was on duty. The doorbell rings again, this time a construction worker. “I’m going to show you what it’s like not to work with Chris Brown for two weeks,” he shouts at the guards, kicking them both out.

In 2014, Brown was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder, a condition defined by hypomanic and depressive episodes. The condition is triggered by extreme stress and drug and alcohol abuse. Also cited in the report, by Brown’s probation officer, were “untreated PTSD” and “inappropriate” self-medicating.”

Brown was preparing for the European leg of his One Hell of a Nite Tour around this time, but according to members of his team, he would stay up for as long as three days at a time, snorting cocaine and using Xanax, marijuana, Molly, and Lean.

“He will cuss you out and say, ‘Hey man, I’m functioning. I’m going to get the work out.’ And he does,” a current member of his team tells Billboard.

During his last run of dates on the One Hell of a Nite Tour, a former employee confesses that Brown threatened his tour manager, leading her to quit.

“But [he’s not] the first functional star who thinks they can handle those powerful drugs. I got to say with all my heart, he’s dancing with death.”

In 2009, Brown attacked then-girlfriend Rihanna, and left her bruised and bloodied on Grammy night, sending her to the hospital. He was sentenced to six months of community labor, a year of counseling, and five years of probation. Since then, Brown has twice been arrested and sent to rehab, both times getting kicked out.

“I felt like a f*cking monster,” Brown says in the trailer for his unreleased documentary, Welcome to My Life, “I was thinking about suicide and everything else. I wasn’t sleeping. I barely ate. I was just getting high.”

“He’s basically the new Bobby Brown,” says a former member of Brown’s management, “Think about how big [Bobby] was in the ‘80s — but you know he was a bad boy.”

Brown’s own father, Clinton Brown, shared the same sentiments during a 2013 interview with New York’s Daily News, in which he said he “personally really didn’t want him and Rihanna back together,” and compared his son to “Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse.”

Now, Brown is gearing up for his upcoming Party Tour, which has stops in 33 cities across the United States, kicking off March 31 in Baltimore.

“My brother is going through a lot,” says Flii Stylz, Brown’s longtime choreographer, “But he’s not crazy. This isn’t why I invested all this time into him. He goes in and out of being angry, but we want to see Chris dancing and singing.”
Click here to read the full story on Billboard.