*No should be at all surprised that family members of the late Whitney Houston are extremely upset and even “disgusted” with Kanye West. As we reported earlier, he’s insisting on using a photo of the singer’s drug-strewn bathroom to adorn to cover of an album for Pusha-T that he’s producing called Daytona.
The Blast spoke with Damon Elliott, the son of Dionne Warwick and cousin of Whitney Houston. Elliott says,
“Let Kanye know that I am disgusted by the fact that y’all think it’s ok to license a photo of my late cousin’s hotel bathroom to spark horrible memories from the most tragic event my family had to face,” said Damon Elliot, a music producer in his own right to The Blast. He’s the son of singer Dionne Warwick and cousin of Whitney Houston.
The now iconic photo was taken in 2006 at Houston’s Atlanta home, and shows drug paraphernalia littered around a disheveled bathroom. The infamous snap was allegedly taken after a particularly bad drug binge and Kanye reportedly paid $85,000 to license the pic for the album art.
By the way, Elliott was actually in the hotel room of the Beverly Hilton in 2012 when Houston died, and is adamant that “Our family doesn’t want to revisit the death in this way,” pleading “let her legacy live.” He says he’s spoken with other members of the family who feel the exact same way.
As we said up top, Elliott is a producer himself. He’s worked on projects with Destiny’s Child, Gwen Stefani and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, among others. He adds that he’s actually done sessions in the studio with Kanye too. He says he finds it hard to understand where West is coming from because he, of all people, understands the pressure of being a celebrity and the toll it takes on one’s health. However, now he thinks “Kanye doesn’t care how we feel.”
Damon Elliott believes the lapse in judgment is because Kanye “is not in his right mind,” and thinks he’s finally “gone way too far for publicity.”