Kanye West paid $85G to put Whitney Houston bathroom photo on Pusha T’s album cover

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Rapper Pusha T is set to release his third album Friday, and — thanks to his producer Kanye West — the record's cover art may look familiar.

Rapper Pusha T is set to release his third album Friday, and — thanks to his producer Kanye West — the record's cover art may look familiar.

Pusha revealed Thursday that the image gracing the cover of "Daytona" is a lightly edited snapshot of Whitney Houston's drug-filled bathroom in her Atlanta home.

The photo, which was originally published in 2006, features Houston's bathroom in disarray, with cigarettes, beer cans, spoons with white powder and crack pipes strewn about.

Pusha revealed that the polarizing image wasn't always the plan; in fact, the new cover didn't come to fruition until 1 a.m. Thursday, when West was struck by some late-night inspiration.

"(West) definitely makes me nervous, he makes me so nervous. He changed my artwork last night at 1 a.m. 'cause he wasn't feeling it," Pusha told Power 105.1 radio host Angie Martinez.

Pusha T said his producer Kanye West called him at 1 a.m. to insist he put a photo of Whitney Houston’s bathroom on the cover of his new album. (Roy Rochlin, Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

The rapper explained that he and his team had already agreed on a series of pictures when West suggested going in a different direction — to the tune of $85,000.

"I said, 'Hey, I don't want to pay for that,'" Pusha recalled. "(West said) 'No, this is what people need to see to go along with this music. I'mma pay for that.'"

With West fronting the 85 grand to license the photo, Pusha agreed to the eleventh-hour switch-up.

"I actually do love it, it's dope. I absolutely did not want to pay for it," he said. "It's a picture. I'm not really too, too, too entrenched in the art world like that, so I'm just going to let him do his thing."

“Daytona,” Pusha T’s third album, is out Friday, and features a photo of Whitney Houston’s bathroom on the cover. (kingpush via Instagram)

Upon its release in 2006, the bathroom photo landed on the front page of the National Enquirerin a cover story that featured Houston's then-sister-in-law Tina Brown admitting the two were "drug buddies."

"I did crack with Whitney. She won't stay off drugs. It's every single day," Tina told the tabloid. "It's so ugly. Everyone is scared she's going to OD."

Houston died six years later after paramedics found her submerged in a bathtub in a Beverly Hills hotel room. Her official cause of death was accidental drowning, and an autopsy revealed she had cocaine, Benadryl, Xanax, marijuana and Flexeril in her system when she died.