As the band strikes into “Roni,” Brown strolls the stage, launching into a remarkable soliloquy: “You know, a Tenderoni, she comes in all shapes and sizes. And I just left my wife, so I want me a bigass Tenderoni right now.” The audience is spellbound. Are Bobby and Whitney over? In just three nights they’re supposed to celebrate their fourteenth wedding anniversary. (New York’s Daily News would later report that Brown left the show this night with Karrine “Superhead” Steffans, who claimed in her best-selling Confessions of a Video Vixen [Amistad, 2005] to have had a six-month affair with Brown beginning in 2002. Brown’s attorney Phaedra Parks told the News that Brown and Houston celebrated their anniversary together with a quiet dinner later that week.) Reaching into the crowd, Brown takes the hand of a pretty and heavy young woman who accepts some help climbing up from her seat to the stage. “That’s all love right there,” he says. “Shit.” The more he talks, the more clear it becomes that tonight’s Roni is merely serving as a surrogate for Brown’s wife. “Sometimes I find myself crawling to my wife like a little dog,” he says, dropping to all fours. Brown playfully licks his guest’s ankles and knees—she seems ticklish. Even still, Bobby is talking about Whitney. “She told herself, ‘Damn, I’m glad I married you!’” After Roni steps offstage, the song wraps up with a big, sexy guitar solo, during which Bobby drops to his knees, lays back, and pumps his fists in the air. He spreads a towel out onstage, then starts doing push-ups that turn into a bump ’n’ grind. Suddenly he’s all alone, just him and his invisible Roni. Nobody asks pesky questions about his career or his marriage, whether his wife will ever sing again, or about whether she’ll even be there waiting when he gets off the plane home. Brown’s back is curled, his muscles coiled. The guitar punctuates his every stroke. Here onstage, the love he makes is his own, and his alone.
Vibe
You need to pick up the magazine to read this article it is really interesting.
