Pusha-T's use of a photo of Whitney Houston's drug-infested bathroom for his 'Daytona' album cover has angered family members of the late singer. In an interview with Angie Martinez, Pusha revealed that Kanye covered the $85,000 to secure the rights to the photo. "I was actually in shock because I’m in the music business," Damon Elliott told People, and mentioned that he even worked with Kanye once on a Keyshia Cole song. "To do something for a publicity stunt to sell records, it’s absolutely disgusting. It hurt my family and my daughter. It’s petty. It’s tacky." Damon said he found out about Kanye's decision to use that photo for Pusha's album by his daughter, who called him and was very upset. "[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," he said.
Whitney Houston’s nephew Gary Michael Houston is coming out in support of Kanye West and Pusha T, who recently used a controversial photo of the late singer’s drug-filled bathroom.
Viaa ABC:
Gary Michael Houston, the 31-year-old son of Whitney Houston’s older brother Michael, told Good Morning America exclusively in a statement Saturday that Whitney Houston’s fans should direct their anger at the unnamed family member who first snapped the 2006 photo. It was then sold and originally published in the National Enquirer.
“Not to be divisive, but I’m of a different mindset when it comes to situations like this. People will automatically look to people like Pusha T and Kanye West and try to place blame or say they have ill or malicious intent in order to gain publicity. But I get it. I get the correlation (sans my aunt but the photo itself),” Gary Michael Houston said in a statement, “and I actually love the album.”
“Bottom line — they are artists and in this day and age, if they can afford to pay someone for usage of that photograph in order to convey a visual message to accompany their musicianship … then so be it,” the hip hop artist added.
Gary Michael Houston continued in the statement that “the bigger issue is deeper and one that most people (including folks who claim to be so heartbroken and traumatized by the usage of the photo) choose to conveniently ignore and bypass.”
“The person who violated the trust of my aunt by taking the photo and selling it to tabloids for their own personal and/or financial gain is more of a travesty to me,” he told GMA in a statement. “People should research that — because whoever exposed it are the people who violated her trust, mistreated her, and who should ultimately be held accountable for contributing to circumstances surrounding her demise.”