From a lawsuit against her step-mother to a secret ransom deal, Whitney Houston’s tumultuous life continues to make headlines.

The 45-year-old singer reportedly filed a counter-suit against her step-mother Barbara Houston for failing to pay her $1.6 million in rent payments on a Fort Lee, New Jersey condominium.

Barbara claims Whitney, who was the beneficiary of about $1 million following her father’s death in 2003, gypped her out of a portion of the proceeds.

Elsewhere in the news, Houston secretly paid a $400,000 ransom to a New York street gang who kidnapped her then-husband Bobby Brown. According to Preacher of the Streets, an autobiography of former gang member David Collins, Houston dropped money off in disguise to an abandoned apartment to keep her Brown alive. The book also reveals that Brown allegedly owed the gangsters $25,000 for drugs.

According to GayWired.com, there’s little proof the incident really occurred. The kidnapping was never reported to the police, and spokespeople for both Houston and Brown refused to comment on the kidnapping allegations.

After 15 years of marriage — riddled with domestic incidents, rehab stints and bad publicity — the two divorced in 2007. Fortunately for Houston, her image seems to be recovering and she’s currently working on a comeback album.