Whitney Houston’s Estate: The Will, the Trust and Bobbi Kristina

By Eric Ridley, attorney, Ridley Law. Updated October 2026.

What was Whitney Houston’s net worth when she died?

About $20 million is the figure that gets repeated, but it is soft. CBS News reported she left a fortune “estimated at nearly $20 million,” and Forbes contributors Danielle and Andy Mayoras wrote in July 2015 that she “initially died with more debt than assets” and that the increase in sales of her songs brought in the estimated $20 million on top of paying the debts. They added that the accuracy of the figures cannot be confirmed.

That fits the AP’s 2015 statement that the size of the estate is a privately held secret. Her will sent everything into a trust for her daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown. After Bobbi Kristina died in 2015, an attorney told Entertainment Tonight the money went back into Houston’s estate for her mother and two brothers, as explained below.

The facts below come from the Associated Press, CBS News, NBC News and ABC News. I haven’t loaded the will or the probate file itself, so wherever a news report describes the will, this page says who reported it.

Did Whitney Houston have a will?

Yes. CBS News and the AP reported in March 2012 that Houston signed her will on February 3, 1993, about a month before she gave birth to her daughter, and that it was filed in Atlanta.

Reports differ on later changes. NBC News reported that she amended the will on April 14, 2000. ABC News, citing Forbes, reported that she updated it in 2004. ABC also reported that a Fulton County, Georgia, probate judge approved the will. This page doesn’t resolve the difference in dates because the document isn’t among the records loaded here.

What did Whitney Houston’s will say about her daughter’s inheritance?

It left everything to Bobbi Kristina, who was 19 at the time, according to CBS News and the AP. CBS reported that the will doesn’t mention specific assets and leaves her furnishings, clothing, personal effects, jewelry and cars to her surviving children. Houston’s money went into a trust.

Under the trust, Bobbi Kristina would get part of the money at 21, more at 25 and the balance at 30, CBS and the AP reported. The trustees could also pay money out earlier for purposes including tuition, buying a home and starting a business. NBC News reported that Houston’s former husband, Bobby Brown, is mentioned in the will but receives nothing.

Who ran Whitney Houston’s estate and trust?

NBC News reported that Houston’s mother, Cissy Houston, was the executor, and that her brother Michael Houston and his wife, Donna, were the trustees. ABC News, citing Forbes, reported that Michael and Donna Houston were no longer serving as trustees and that Pat Houston, Houston’s sister-in-law and manager, was the estate’s administrator.

The AP reported in 2015 that Pat Houston was appointed administrator of the trust fund Houston set up for Bobbi Kristina after Houston’s death.

What happened to the trust while Bobbi Kristina was alive?

The AP reported that Bobbi Kristina’s money was held in a spendthrift trust, a trust designed to keep creditors and others from reaching the money. Her grandmother, Cissy Houston, and her aunt, Pat Houston, eventually took over control of the trust and went to court to protect it.

According to the AP, the Houstons told the court that Bobbi Kristina was a “highly visible target for those who would exercise undue influence over her inheritance” and asked the judge to delay how quickly she could control the money. The AP reported that she agreed to the delay and the judge sealed the case.

In May 2015, the AP reported, a judge appointed Bobby Brown and Pat Houston as co-guardians of Bobbi Kristina for her care and medical needs, and a lawyer, Bedelia Hargrove, as conservator over her assets. About six months before she died, she was found face-down and unresponsive in a bathtub in the Atlanta-area townhome she shared with Nick Gordon, the AP reported. She died on July 26, 2015, at age 22.

Who inherited Whitney Houston’s estate after Bobbi Kristina died?

Attorney Andrew Mayoras explained it to Entertainment Tonight in a piece CBS News published on July 29, 2015. Because Bobbi Kristina had no children, he said, “the money goes back into Whitney Houston’s estate under the terms of her will, and will be held for the benefit of her mother,” Cissy Houston, “and her two brothers,” Michael Houston and Gary Garland. He said Bobby Brown does not inherit anything from Houston’s will.

Mayoras added that Brown might receive money Bobbi Kristina herself had inherited if she hadn’t left a will saying otherwise. That second step is a separate question from Houston’s will. Her daughter’s property would be governed by her daughter’s own plan, or by intestacy if she had none.

The same report said it was unclear how much Bobbi Kristina had received before she died. It said the figure could be around $2 million.

How much was Whitney Houston’s estate worth?

Entertainment Tonight, in the CBS News piece, put the fortune at nearly $20 million. The AP said in 2015 that the size of the estate is a privately held secret. CBS News reported in February 2012 that Houston’s estate was expected to take in about $10 million that year, far less than others, because she did not write or own her songs. CBS contrasted that with Michael Jackson’s estate, which took in $170 million the year before. The AP also reported that Houston lost two homes to foreclosure toward the end of her life.

What this means for your own plan

• Staged payments protect a young beneficiary, and they raise the stakes on the trustee. Someone with discretion over tuition, a home or a business decides a lot. Read trustee vs beneficiary: rights, duties, and where they collide and what a successor trustee does.
• A spendthrift clause limits who can reach the money. See the glossary entry for spendthrift trust.
• Name backup beneficiaries. Houston’s plan answered what happens if Bobbi Kristina died young. Yours should too. See what happens if a beneficiary dies during administration.
• Keep the trust funded. A trust only controls what is in it. Use the trust funding checklist.

More famous estates: celebrity estates and what they teach, Elvis Presley’s estate, Tupac Shakur’s estate and Robin Williams’s estate.