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Kanye West's latest controversy involves a photo of the late Whitney Houston's drug-filled bathroom

Kanye West
Kanye West performs at Madison Square Garden, September 2016. (Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Live Nation)

File this under the mysteries of Kanye West.

The rapper selected an eerily familiar photo for the cover of a new album that he produced, Pusha T’s Daytona. It shows the late Whitney Houston’s drug-filled bathroom, and was featured on the cover of the National Enquirer in 2006.

As Pusha T explained on The Angie Martinez Show Wednesday, West was the driving force in that decision. After all, they had already selected something else ahead of the album’s Friday release.

“He changed my artwork last night at 1 a.m. He wasn’t feeling it,” Pusha T told Martinez. “[Originally], the 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.”

West then insisted on spending $85,000 of his own money for the snapshot. West was adamant: “This is what people need to see to go along with this music,” Pusha T said.

The image that West shared is slightly different than the original photo. For one, the beer can has disappeared in the Daytona version.

Houston, 48, died Feb. 11, 2012, in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., where she was staying for the Grammy Awards. The coroner’s office determined that she died by accidental drowning, but cocaine and heart disease contributed to her death.

The “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” singer began using drugs in her early 20s, according to People. She checked into rehab multiple times throughout her short life.

Just last month, singer Lorde got backlash after she shared a photo of a bathtub with the caption “And iiii will always love you.”

She later apologized: “Extremely extremely poorly chosen quote,” she wrote on her Instagram Stories. “I’m so sorry for offending anyone — I hadn’t even put this together, I was just excited to take a bath. I’m an idiot. Love Whitney forever and ever. Sorry again.”

A few of West’s followers disapproved of his use of the photo, but he’s used to that sort of thing.

Seems that West never does anything without controversy.


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