Whitney Houston making comeback from beyond the grave with £80m deal

Her friends called her “the Queen of Music” and at the height of her career she signed the biggest recording deal in history, worth around £80million.

But by the time she died, aged just 48, Whitney Houston was virtually broke, her huge fortune blown on bad financial decisions and drugs.

Now, as fans get ready to celebrate what would have been her 60th birthday in August, the I Will Always Love You singer is making a surprise comeback.

Last week it was announced her estate is releasing a posthumous gospel album called I Go To The Rock, featuring six previously unheard songs. Whitney will also feature at the Bafta Awards tonight, where British actress Naomi Ackie has been nominated for playing her in the film I Wanna Dance With Somebody.

And we can reveal her estate has made £80million since her death, thanks in part to an agreement with music marketing company Primary Wave.

Whitney’s close friend, songwriter Raffles van Exel, 54, is credited as being the man behind that deal. He revealed: “If you really knew Whitney, you would have loved her. She was crazy, kind, hard-headed, beautiful and had a heart of gold. Whitney was the Queen of Music. When I knew her, she was in her prime and that woman was everywhere.

“I am proud of my role in the deal because it keeps her legacy alive.”

Whitney’s death at the Beverly Hilton hotel on February 11, 2012, sparked a global wave of mourning.

In her prime in 2001, she signed a $100million deal to produce music for Arista Records, then a world record.

But before her death, she was a shadow of her former self, personally and financially, with £20,000 in the bank and debts totalling £3million.

Whitney had been photographed looking dishevelled and erratic in LA in the days before she died, including on a night out with Netherlands-born Raffles.

Her long-time manager Pat Houston, who married the star’s brother Gary, was among the first to discover her body.

Whitney had passed out in the bathtub in Suite 434 in the late afternoon.

An autopsy gave the cause of death as drowning, but added that a contributing factor was the “effects of atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use”.

Whitney, it stated, had taken cocaine shortly before she died, as well as marijuana and prescription drugs.

Raffles has previously told how he was with Whitney’s daughter Bobbi Kristina, then 18, when he realised something was wrong.

He said: “I opened the door and saw Pat sitting on a chair, white as a sheet, rocking back and forth. Then I saw Whitney lying on the floor with her bodyguard, who’d lifted her out, trying to give her CPR. It was the first time in my life I had seen a dead body.”

Her manager Pat was made the executor of her estate but, because Whitney did not write her own songs, the money did not flow in.

When Raffles held a meeting with Primary Wave founder Larry Mestel in 2019, her estate was valued at just £10million. Shortly after buying up 50 percent of Whitney’s assets that year, Primary Wave got Norwegian DJ Kygo to remix the late star’s unreleased cover of Steve Winwood’s Higher Love track.

The new record soared to number one in the dance charts in 2019.

Ahead of what would have been her 60th birthday on August 9, Whitney has a Broadway musical coming out and is even going back on tour as a hologram.

The new gospel album is out in March.