Whitney Houston may soon be singing I Have Nothing again because of a court-ordered sale of personal belongings ranging from glittering stage costumes to a chair known as “Whitney’s throne”.

Dozens of the diva’s clothes, including sequinned Dolce & Gabbana bustiers, a fake leopardskin hat and four velvet bodysuits monogrammed with the initials WH, are going on the block on Tuesday because of an unpaid storage bill.

“If you were really getting outfitted to do a show, this is the stuff,” Steve Newmark, co-owner of the A. J. Willner auction house in New Jersey, said. “The size is rather small. I never realised she was that small. But it’s a fabulous thing.”

Also up for sale are sound systems, two drum kits, three Schimmel grand pianos, a whip, a slot machine and a church pew.

“The auction house is selling off Ms Houston’s old tour equipment in order to fulfil a court order to pay back owed rent for storage,” Nancy Seltzer, Houston’s spokeswoman, said yesterday.

A lawyer for the New Jersey-based Speed of Sound storage company said that Houston’s company, Nippy Inc, owed an estimated $200,000 (£100,000) in unpaid bills since May 2005.

Many of the clothes, including costumes by Versace, Bob Mackie and Giorgio Armani, have been in storage since Houston’s My Love is Your Love tour in 1999. The sale of 355 items is the latest in a long line of legal woes for the six-time Grammy-winning singer, who recently ended a tumultuous 14-year marriage to Bobby Brown, the R&B singer turned reality TV star.

Houston, 43, whose eponymous first album in 1985 set a record for a debut by a female artist by selling 13 million worldwide, married Brown in 1992. But the couple were plagued by Brown’s repeated run-ins with the law and Houston’s drug use.

In 2004, a judge ruled that there was enough evidence for Brown to stand trial on battery charges after an alleged fight with Houston. But Houston insisted that, while she had hit him, he had never hit her, and charges were dropped. The couple featured in a reality TV show called Being Bobby Brown, which revealed an unkempt Houston’s dinner-table chatter about digestive bloat and having to “drop one”.

The superstar has entered drug rehab programmes twice. The National Enquirer recently published photographs taken by her sister-in-law purporting to show drug paraphernalia in her squalid bathroom.

Houston, who once sang I Will Always Love You, filed for divorce in October. In court papers, the singer asked for custody of the couple’s 13-year-old daughter, Bobbi Kristina, but said that Brown, 37, should be allowed visitation rights.

The Atlanta home where the couple lived has been put up for sale after it was threatened with repossession, but Houston has now paid debts on another house in New Jersey, her spokeswoman said.

After her separation, Houston reappeared in public view wearing a blonde wig at a charity ball in Los Angeles with Halle Berry, the actress, telling a reporter: “I feel great.”

Some of Brown’s possessions appear to be among the items up for sale, including “16 assorted Bobby Brown music awards”. Mr Newmark, the auction house owner, expects to raise millions of dollars. Houston will keep any money left over when the outstanding storage bill is paid.

The auction house is more used to selling off factories and retail shops than showbiz memorabilia. “We would rather sell it all to one person and be done with it,” he said. “We are trying to avoid having a fan come to buy one shoe, because we are not going to be selling it.”