Bobby Brown sat down for his first interview since his ex-wife Whitney Houston's death with TODAY's Matt Lauer.

The full interview airs Wednesday (May 2) but preview quotes have been released and Brown proclaimed, "I'm not the reason she's gone." He is well aware that her fans and the media have long ascribed her drug use and abuse to hooking up with him, believing that he introduced her the lifestyle that eventually claimed her and caused her death.

Brown claims that Houston began to use drugs "way before" they began dating and even dropped the bombshell that he never even tried hard drugs before he married the singer.

It's not exactly dragging Houston's name through the mud. In interviews during their marriage, when the media tried to paint her as the princess and her hubby as the villain, she was quick to say she was no angel when he met her.

According to WENN, Brown, who has maintained sobriety for seven years, admitted, “I didn’t get high before I met Whitney. I smoked weed, I drank the beer, but no, I wasn’t the one that got Whitney on drugs at all." Unfortunately, though, smoking weed is a form of "getting high," but we can appreciate that Brown meant "high" in a narcotic sense.

He is shocked that everyone wants to make him the scapegoat, saying, "It’s just ... It’s just unexplainable how one could, you know, got her addicted to drugs. I’m not the reason she’s gone."

Those assumptions hurt, with the 'My Prerogative' singer saying, "It makes me feel terrible. But you know, I know differently. I think if anyone ever knew us, if anybody ever spent time around us instead of time lookin’ through the bubble, they would know how we felt about each other. They would know how happy we were together."

Those sentiments were echoed by Houston's brother and sister-in-law in their chat with Oprah.

Finding out Houston died with drugs in her system was also painful for Brown, who said, "I was hurt … Because, you know, me being off of narcotics for the last seven years, I felt that she was … I didn’t know she was struggling with it still. But at the same time, you know, listen, it’s a hard fight. It’s a hard fight to maintain sobriety that way."

He also saw her before her passing, thinking she was healthy and looked lit from within. "(She) had this glow about her that was just incredible. I’m saying to myself, ‘She must be doing really well,’ because she looked really well."

Before you vilify Brown, remember, he is hurting, too, as Houston's ex-husband and the father of her only child, Bobbi Kristina. Brown's other children also partake in the TODAY interview.

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