Kanye West Spent $85,000 on a Photo of Whitney Houston's Bathroom for a Strange Reason

Whitney Houston tragically died on February 11, 2012, just a day before the Grammy Awards, of that year. In 2018, Kanye West made headlines for his controversial way of paying homage to the iconic vocalist. He paid $85,000 to license a picture of Whitney Houston's drug-infested bathroom for the album cover after working with rapper Pusha T on Daytona. According to Variety, the chaotic grunge textured picture, which was taken in 2006 following an alleged drug spree in Houston's Atlanta home, shows a variety of narcotics and opiates. 

Pusha T revealed that Ye changed the album artwork at the last minute, “He changed my artwork at 1 a.m. He wasn’t feeling it,” Pusha told radio host Angie Martinez during an exclusive sitdown interview back then. “The [original] artwork — it was pictures that we all agreed on. He picked the photographer, I took these pictures, I was like, ‘Yo, these are fresh.’ I picked all of these pictures out, he had a little edit to it, how he wanted the actual grading of the picture to look. Picked the picture, great, we look, boom, boom, boom, it’s good.” 

Pusha also shared that the Bound 2 rapper felt that Houston's photo captured the essence of the album, so he paid for it out of his pocket. However, a beer can was edited out of the picture, probably for copyright issues, making it slightly different from the original version that was first featured on the National Enquirer's cover. "One a.m., my phone rings. No caller ID. [Kanye says], 'Hey, yeah, I think we should change the artwork.' And, 'I like this other artwork. And this other artwork is 85 grand,'" he recalled.

Meanwhile, the late singer's estate criticized West for making a mockery of her death. According to ABC News, bottles of alcohol and prescription medications were discovered in a room next to her body. Her estate said they were "extremely disappointed in Kanye's choice," to use a photo of her alleged drug addiction to promote his produced album."Even in Whitney’s death, we see that no one is exempt from the harsh realities of the world," an official statement to Entertainment Tonight read. 

As per People, Houston's cousin Damon Elliott slammed West for his unethical choice, he recalled feeling 'sick in the stomach' when his daughter sent him the album picture. "She was frantic. She sent me this picture from the album cover and I immediately got sick to my stomach because it took me right back to six years ago," Elliot said. "I was actually in shock because I'm in the music business," he continued, "I've watched the train wreck happening, but I didn't think he'd go this far in invading someone's family privacy," the cousin raged. Elliot revealed that Ye never contacted him before using the picture, he called out the Donda rapper's behavior a 'cheap stunt'. "To do something for a publicity stunt to sell records, it's absolutely disgusting," he concluded. "It hurt my family and my daughter. It's petty. It's tacky."