Julien’s Auctions hosted a high-profile sale in Los Angeles on August 11, 2025, offering fans and collectors 25 curated lots from the Whitney E. Houston estate in a fundraiser for the Whitney E. Houston Legacy Foundation. The event, which ran with in-person, phone, and online bidding options, brought together memorabilia tied to key moments in Houston’s career.
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“Whitney Houston fans and collectors from around the world will have a rare opportunity to own incredible memorabilia and artifacts from important moments of her stellar career, while making a difference,” said Giles Moon, vice president and head of music for Julien’s, in the auction announcement.
Among the highlighted lots were symbols of Houston’s public life. These included a Bob Mackie casino-themed jacket, a custom Marc Bouwer sheer black catsuit with bead and crystal embellishments worn during her “I’m Your Baby Tonight” World Tour stop at Madison Square Garden, a one-of-a-kind Harley-Davidson black leather fringe jacket seen in the “I’m Your Baby Tonight” video, and the blue jersey Houston wore at the closing ceremony of the 1994 FIFA World Cup. The catalogue also included a series of RIAA multi-platinum sales awards for hits such as “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” “How Will I Know,” “I Will Always Love You,” “I Have Nothing” and the soundtrack album The Bodyguard. Julien’s posted realized prices for each lot on its online lot pages following the sale.
The auction items were shown publicly in advance at the Whitney E. Houston Legacy Foundation’s Legacy of Love Gala. The gala was staged as dual milestones for Houston’s 62nd birthday in August and the 40th anniversary of her breakthrough in music. The program included performances and scholarship presentations with singer-actress Jennifer Hudson headlining the event, Pat Houston and Kevin Frazier serving as hosts and Clive Davis named as honorary chair, according to reporting on the gala.
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Whitney first established The Whitney Houston Foundation for Children in 1989. During its early years, it supported homeless children, built inner-city parks and playgrounds, and provided college scholarships, while also supporting organizations such as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Rainforest Foundation, Special Olympics and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The Whitney E. Houston Legacy Foundation’s public statements say the auction proceeds are intended to “raise awareness and generate vital support for the foundation’s diverse initiatives, scholarships, and services, each designed to reflect and address the values and needs of today’s youth.”
The sale arrives amid attention to Houston’s commercial and cultural stature. In late June 2025, the Whitney E. Houston Legacy Foundation announced that the Recording Industry Association of America had updated the singer’s U.S. certifications for her 40th anniversary in music. That release cited The Bodyguard soundtrack as certified 19x Platinum and named “I Will Always Love You” at 11x Platinum, among other multi-platinum singles. It also noted that Houston is the first Black artist to have three RIAA Diamond-certified albums, highlighting the scale of her commercial impact. The foundation’s announcement also reported cumulative U.S. units of roughly 114.5 million, which is why memorabilia tied to those achievements draws strong interest.
Media coverage of the auction and gala framed the sale as a collaboration between the estate, the foundation, and Julien’s to monetize select artifacts while directing funds to charitable aims. Local reporting noted that the lots were donated by the estate and curated for the sale, and that collectors could participate from around the globe.
For many fans, the auction served both as an opportunity to collect keepsakes from Houston’s career and as a continuation of a philanthropic thread that ran through much of her public life. Whitney Houston died in 2012 at age 48, and the estate and foundation have sought to continue her artistic legacy with charitable initiatives aimed at the causes she supported.
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