Michael Jackson’s jacket sells for £250,000 at auction

LONDON  -  An iconic leather jacket worn by Michael Jackson in the 1980s has been bought for £250,000 ($306,000). The black-and-white garment, worn by the late singer in a Pepsi advert, had been ex­pected to sell for between £200,000 and £400,000 at the auction. The item was among more than 200 pieces of music memorabilia sold in London on Saturay, including a George Michael jacket and an Amy Winehouse hairpiece. Pieces linked to David Bowie, Oasis and The Beatles also went un­der the hammer. Jackson wore the jacket in 1984, in the first of a series of commercials the superstar did for the soft drink company. Those adverts are mainly remembered for an incident which saw Jackson’s hair catch fire during one film­ing session, leaving him with serious burns. He was wearing a different jacket at the time. Wham! star Michael wore his La Rocka jacket while duetting alongside US singer Aretha Franklin in I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me). It sold for £93,750 ($115,000), also in­cluding the buyer’s premium as part of the four-day Prop­store entertainment sale. That was significantly more than the guide price, of between £30,000 and £60,000. Another high-ticket item was a beehive hairpiece worn by British sing­er Amy Winehouse for a 2007 music video You Know I’m No Good, from her last album Back To Black. It sold for £18,750 ($22,900), slightly above the lower end of its estimated val­ue. Other featured items includ­ed ones linked to Elvis Presley, Queen and Johnny Marr. A Gib­son guitar that belonged to AC/DC’s Angus Young went unsold, as did a limited edition Yellow Submarine Beatles jukebox.

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