Access Hollywood has learned from a source close to Whitney Houston that the star has split from her long-time husband Bobby Brown.

What is now a legal separation is a technicality which, according to Houston’s publicist, Nancy Seltzer, automatically will become a divorce filing in October.

The source says legal documents were filed Friday and that Bobby Brown was served with those documents yesterday.

Bobby Brown & Whitney Houston got married on July 18th 1992. They have been married for 14 years.

They have one daughter, Bobbi Kristina, born March 4, 1993.

In June 2005, Brown launched his own reality series, “Being Bobby Brown,” on the Bravo television network.

Whitney Houston made a splash at the Beverly Hilton Hotel last night with a surprise appearance at the “The Society of Singers Presents the 15th Annual Ella Award honoring Johnny Mathis”. Flanked by her mentor, Clive Davis, and cousin, Dionne Warwick (who performed at the event), Whitney looked every bit the picture of health and happiness, the likes of which the public hasn’t seen from her in quite some time.

The glamorous Whitney was all smiles posing for photographs, laughing arm-in-arm with Davis and Warwick, and appeared reminiscent of years past when she was at the top of her game as one of the leading ladies of the music industry.

Mr. Davis told MTV last week that he and Whitney are at work right now on a comeback album, and they’ve already chosen six songs for the project. Clive had this to say about what fans can expect: “Whitney is Whitney, and there ain’t nobody like her. It’ll be Whitney. It won’t be somebody reaching for a current trend, that’s for sure.”

Whitney has been under public scrutiny in recent years due to her declining weight, tumultous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, and her stint in a rehabilitation facility in 2005 (for undisclosed reasons). Her last studio album, “One Wish: The Holiday Album,” only reached No. 49 on the Billboard 200 album chart after its November 2003 release, performing far below her previous efforts.

Last night’s surprise appearance coupled with Clive Davis’ announcement of a new album indicates that the former reigning diva could soon be back where she belongs: on top of her game and on top of the charts.