Bobby Brown insists he still "loves" Whitney Houston's family.

Bobby Brown

Bobby Brown

The New Edition singer was recently slammed by his late ex-wife's mother Cissy Houston over an interview he did with ABC's '20/20' where he detailed his and Whitney's drug use and the death of their daughter Bobbi Kristina last year, but he has insisted he never meant any ill will to his former in-laws and has "reached out several times" to retain a connection to them.

He told interviewer Larry King: "I think Ms. Houston is going through the same thing I'm going through.

"But there's no love lost from me.

"I respect and love that whole family and I'd hope that they know that. But my life has to go on and I'd like to stay well."

Cissy branded Bobby's '20/20' interview "disturbing" because, despite being on the show to talk about his autobiography 'Every Little Step: My Story', he mainly spoke about her daughter, who died in 2012, over five years after they split.

She said: "I saw Bobby Brown's interview with Robin Roberts. It was disturbing. Although the interview was supposed to promote HIS autobiography, he never spoke about his parents and siblings and any issues they might have or have had that impacted and may continue to impact on 'Every Little Step' he takes. Instead he chose to concentrate his comments primarily on Whitney. I can't help but wonder why.

"Whether I would have chosen Bobby for my daughter's husband is not important because the choice was not mine to make. She loved him and I believe him when he says he loved her. I only wish he had loved and respected her enough to make some of the negative statements about her and Krissi while Whitney was alive and able to respond from her perspective."

Cissy, 82, was unhappy with Bobby's allegation that Whitney did drugs on her wedding day and blasted him for making claims about the late star when she was no longer around to defend herself.

She added: "He waited to speak about her when she could no longer speak for herself."

"There is no value in my challenging all of his statements - point for point... However, I must say that his story of seeing her do drugs for the first time on their wedding day is untrue (Donna Houston, Robyn Crawford and I were with Nippy the whole time before the ceremony), and more importantly, it forever casts a shadow over one of the most important days of her life.

"My prayer for Nippy and Krissi is that they will soon rest in peace. My prayer for me is that someday, somewhere beyond the horizon where we cannot see, I will be with them again . . . And Joy will come in the morning."

Whitney died in 2012 aged 48 after she was found unresponsive in a bathtub at a Beverly Hills hotel while Bobbi Kristina, 22, passed away in July 2015, nearly six months after she was found unresponsive in a bath at her home in Georgia.