Bobby Brown...

WHITNEY'S 911 CALL - Associated Press

By LARRY CELONA and RITA DELFINER - New York Post

Bad-boy singer Bobby Brown was rushed to a New Jersey hospital yesterday with pop diva wife Whitney Houston at his side in the ambulance after she made a frantic predawn call to 911.   "He's fine," Houston's spokeswoman Nancy Seltzer said, explaining the "mind-boggling" heat and humidity got to Brown, who had put in long hours in a recording studio on the grounds of the couple's Mendham estate.

Mendham Township cops said they got the 911 call about 3 a.m. that a man was having a seizure and needed help.

When cops and the ambulance arrived at the house, Houston met them and took them inside, cops said.

"Whitney did what any wife would do and took her husband to the hospital," Seltzer said, noting that he was not admitted and spent only about 90 minutes at Morristown Memorial Hospital's emergency room.  He was literally working nonstop for three to four days recording his new album. He was getting in the groove" and wasn't prepared for the brutal heat, she said.

"He hadn't been getting enough fluid and basically he was lightheaded," the spokeswoman said.

While in the ER, Brown refused to provide blood and urine samples, sources said.    "He was feeling better by the time he got there and he didn't feel it was necessary," Seltzer said when asked for comment on his refusal.

She said Brown is "going to get some rest and go back to recording."

A hospital spokesman refused to provide any details, citing patient confidentiality.

The sour note came just days after the Grammy-winning Houston nailed a new multi-album long-term recording contract with Arista records for more than $100 million.

And it came over a year after Brown cooled his heels in a Florida jail for 26 days last May for violating probation on a 1996 drunken-driving charge by failing to take a drug test.

The episode dates to his August 1996 arrest after the singer smashed his wife's Porsche Carrera into a signpost in Hollywood, Fla. His blood-alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit, tests showed.

He was granted probation and ordered to take regular drug tests.  Authorities said Brown tested positive for cocaine in April 1999 and later refused to take any more tests or check in with his New Jersey probation officer.

He was arrested in May, 2000 at Newark Airport - returning from a Bahamas vacation with Houston - and immediately flown to Fort Lauderdale to face the music.

On Jan. 11, 2000, Houston was busted with a half-ounce of pot in her purse at a Hawaiian airport, cops said.  In November, Hawaii prosecutors dismissed a pot-possession charge in return for her promise to complete a probation-like program.   US Weekly reported last year that Houston's family begged her to go into rehab, but she refused.

It was last year that Houston backed out of performing at the Oscars because of what her publicist called "a sore throat."

NEWSFILE: 9 AUGUST 2001