Dolly Parton To Earn A Fortune Off Of Whitney Houston’s Death

We're sure she isn't happy about it, and would much rather Whitney be alive, but Dolly Parton is poised to earn a lot of money off of the post-humous sales of I Will Always Love You.

Unfortunately, not much of anything will go to Whitney's estate, as she didn't write any of her own songs.

Here's what insiders are saying:

"She was broke -- her label gave her advances. And unlike Michael, you have to remember that Whitney didn't write any of those massive hits. They were songs that Clive Davis told her to sing and she did."

"On records, the typical mechanical royalty paid to the writer/publisher is about 8 cents per radio performance. That would all go to Dolly. Whitney is only the singer. She receives an advance from the record company based upon anticipated album sales. Figure that's around $2.00 per album. But all of the costs to record the album, promote the album, videos, etc. are all recouped from the artist's share."

"Whitney was living off of advances -- loans from the record company -- and had been [for] quite some time. Most likely the estate owes the record company a ton and future sales will be used to pay back that loan before any money goes to the estate. The songwriters, however, will make a bundle."

That's a major bummer, but completely understandable. We're sorry that she was in such financial distress, but that was the reality of it.

We're expecting to see major numbers from her older catalogue as well, so when those numbers are in we'll have a better idea of how much money is coming in due to her untimely passing!

We miss you, Whitney!

[Image via WENN.]