The King of Bling?

Michael Jackson’s departure was almost as lavish as his all too brief life. A confirmed shopaholic, the King of Pop’s family ensured that he received the send-off that he surely would have wanted. Certainly Jackson’s funeral arrangements would have been suitable for the ruler of a small European country, complete with magnificent blue velvet-lined, 14 carat gold plated personalised bronze coffin with mirror finish. At a cool $25,000 (£15,000) Jacko’s casket cost more than the annual income of many of his millions of broken-hearted fans, who applied in vain for one of the 17,000 tickets available to his memorial concert at LA’s Staples Centre.

As with Elvis and John Lennon before him, Jackson’s name is worth even more posthumously than it was when he moonwalked among us. The singer has recently broken a new record in auction with an item of dubious value: his last soda can. A Swedish fan has set a $50,000 starting bid for Jackson’s last opened can of energy drink Mystery, for which he was the face of the brand from 1995.

In November, on-line fanatics will be able to bid on what is thought to be the Jackson family’s car during Jacko’s childhood, a 1971 Cadillac Fleetwood. Other products on sale include hair for $500 per piece, a life-sized cardboard cut-out from the ‘Bad’ video for $750,000 and a $500,000 Billie Jean hat from the 1984 Victory Tour, complete with chocolate stain on the rim. Say what you will about such sums in times of recession, or the star’s many eccentricities, but the evidence of his talent will remain with us for a long time to come.

New post on at Wednesday, 15 July, 2009, 8:43 am and is archived in International News. Subscribe to answers with RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.