Story highlights
Whitney Houston sold more than 170 million albums, singles and videos
She won at least 411 awards, including 6 Grammy honors
The mother of one daughter, she was 48 when she died
As a singer and as a person, Whitney Houston had been described as larger than life. The numbers speak to that, adding up to a legendary career.
2
Years that Houston took to make her first album after iconic music producer Clive Davis discovered her in a New York nightclub in 1983.
12 million
Copies of her debut album, titled “Whitney Houston,” sold in the United States
11.8 million
Number of “The Bodyguard” soundtrack units sold, making it the best-selling soundtrack in more than 20 years
14 weeks
The period “I Will Always Love You” topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1992, the second-longest reign in the chart’s history
4.5 million
The number of physical singles Whitney Houston’s song, “I Will Always Love You, has sold since its release in 1992
7
Consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits that she had in the 1980s – from “Saving All My Love for You” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” – breaking a record earlier held by The Beatles and the Bee Gees.
79.6 million
Estimated number of those who watched Super Bowl XXV on January 27, 1991, where Houston’s rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” became the gold standard for performing the national anthem, according to music critics
$410,945,720
Gross domestic and international sales from the 1992 movie “The Bodyguard,” starring Houston and Kevin Costner
1
Number of children – Bobbi Kristina, born in 1993 after her marriage to New Edition singer Bobby Brown
60 million
TV viewers who watched Houston star as the Fairy Godmother in an ABC reworking of Cinderella in 1997
6
Grammy awards that Houston won over the course of her career, the last coming in 2000 for best female R&B performance for “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay”
411
Awards total that she’d garnered as of 2006
170 million
Albums, singles and videos that she sold over the course of her career
48
Age on Saturday, when she was pronounced dead in her fourth-floor room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills
Sources: Whitney Houston’s official website; Nielsen; Boxofficemojo.com; Recording Industry Association of America