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Whitney Houston hugged husband Bobby Brown as he left Broward jail

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Whitney Houston and then-husband Bobby Brown were no strangers to South Florida.

Houston owned a condo on Williams Island in Aventura, and the family spent time in Coral Springs. Brown was arrested and charged with DUI after a 1996 car crash in Hollywood.

Part of her film “The Bodyguard” was filmed at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach.

In 2000, Houston was outside the North Broward Jail complex in Pompano Beach waiting to welcome Brown, wrapping her legs around him as she hugged him.

Here’s the story the Sun Sentinel originally published on Saturday, July 8, 2000.

With a plastic bag of clothes in his left hand, singer Bobby Brown kissed the fingers on his right and waved a high-flying peace sign to the jailhouse he left behind.

Then he turned and walked toward a throng of cameras, security and spectators just after midnight on Friday. After serving 65 days of a 75-day sentence for violating parole, Brown was released 10 days early for good behavior, as is standard practice in Broward County.

Brown was treated no differently from any other prisoner, said Bruce Lyons, his Fort Lauderdale lawyer.

“He learned that he’s got to in essence realize that just being Bobby Brown doesn’t give him free rein,” Lyons said.

Being Bobby Brown did get him a bigger welcome back to society than the other inmates released from the North Broward Jail complex in the early hours. Rhythm-and-blues superstar wife Whitney Houston, threw herself into Brown’s arms, her legs wrapped around his waist, as she hugged him. And hours before, comedian Chris Rock arrived to stage a mock protest with signs carrying messages like, “Don’t be cruel, free Bobby Brown.”

Rock will incorporate the film footage of the event into his show on HBO, the network said.

When asked why he decided to come, Rock told the media: “People ask me to get involved in causes all the time. I just felt I needed a cause I could believe in. So I sat down and really thought about it and I said to myself, ‘Self, what can I believe in? Who never let you down?’ And I came up with one person, Bobby Brown.”

Brown apparently agreed that he hasn’t let his kids down, at least. “I’m not here to be a role model for other people’s children,” he said. “I’m here to be a role model for my kids.”

He told reporters he wanted to go home and spend the summer with them.

That was a different tune from what Brown was singing when sentenced last month. “The day I get out will be the day I start working again,” he said at the time.

When Broward County Judge Leonard Feiner sentenced Brown on June 12, he had already served 39 days following a May 11 arrest. U.S. Customs stopped Brown, who was returning from a trip to the Bahamas with his family, for failing to report to a probation officer.

Brown’s problems in Broward began in August 1996, when he was arrested in Hollywood and charged with drunken driving. Police said he lost control of his Porsche Carrera on North Ocean Drive and ran into a sign. He was sentenced to 30 days in a residential drug and alcohol treatment program and 100 hours of community service.

Feiner sentenced Brown for violating probation after concluding he had not completed the community service, and for refusing to take a urine test.