The late singer's personal belongings are expected to bring in at least $500k.
While she may not be officially debuting as a hologram in the near future, Whitney Houston’s fans will soon have a chance to own some of the singer’s personal belongings.
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Dozens of items owned by Houston -- including her wedding dress, awards, jewelry, debits cards, a passport, and more -- will be sold through Heritage Auctions on June 24 and 25.. The sale is in collaboration with Houston’s estate and is expected to fetch a minimum of $500,000.
The opening bid for most of Houston’s items range between $500-$1,000 dollars, while the custom Marc Bauer wedding dress she wore to marry Bobby Brown in 1992, has a starting bid of $3,500. Additional outfits up for sale include Houston’s performance pieces and red-carpet looks, and a personalized leather bomber jacket bearing her nickname, “Nippy.”
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According to Garry Shrum, head of Heritage’s Entertainment and Music Memorabilia division, the Houston family reached out to the company’s president. "We had worked with a good friend of theirs, David Gest," said Shrum of 62-year-old Gest, who died in April. "He knew us and liked what we did and told the Houston [family] about us, and my colleague Margaret Barrett and I went out to New Jersey and listened to what they wanted to do."
"We gave them some ideas, they gave us some ideas, and we came up with this 119-piece collection that's basically a retrospective of Whitney from the beginning," Shrum told Billboard. "From when she first started singing after she left being a background singer for Chaka Khan and Lou Rawls. We have her passport from the beginning, all these various awards and outfits, all kinds of cool and groovy things."
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Among the awards that made it to the auction block are Houston’s 1988 American Music Award for "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," the multi-platinum plaque from her 1986 self-titled debut album, numerous GRAMMY nomination certificates, a 1986 work visa she used to perform in Japan, and a 1993 Billboard Award for "I Will Always Love You."
Houston died from an accidental drug overdose in February 2012. She was 48.
Watch her very first ET interview in the video below.
