Following the death of singer Whitney Houston, many bereaved fans took to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in search of her star, in order to leave flowers, notes and other mementos. Imagine their surprise to learn that they won’t find a star for the multi-platinum, multi-Grammy winning Houston there. Why not? After all, even Ryan Seacrest has one.
Whitney Houston was awarded the honor of having her own star added to the Walk of Fame back in 1995, but never claimed that honor. It turns out that when a Walk of Fame star is “awarded”, it’s up to the honoree to pay for its installation, the award ceremony, and an ongoing fee for maintenance and upkeep of the star.
When the Houston camp was notified of the award, no one on the staff made any further arrangements or paid the required fees to move forward with the installation. Honorees are given a five year window in which to make these arrangements, and Houston’s time limit was up in 2000.
The Walk of Fame committee has issued a statement saying they would be willing to award Houston a star posthumously, but as with any other honoree, it will be up to Houston’s survivors to make the necessary arrangements and pay the usual fees.
Since her death, Houston’s albums have been rocketing up the charts. Whitney the Greatest Hits briefly overtook Adele’s 21 for the #1 bestselling album spot in Amazon’s digital downloads store, and still occupies the #2 spot.
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