Treasures from Jackson’s last home go under hammer
LOS ANGELES – A bedroom mirror on which Michael Jackson scrawled a self-motivating message in the last months of his life sold for some $19,000 Saturday, as the contents of his last home went under the hammer.
Items from a bedroom where Michael Jackson was living when he died are on exhibit Sunday (Dec. 11, 2011) during a private preview of contents of 100 North Carolwood Drive, the final home of Michael Jackson that will be up for auction at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills, California. The carved headboard seen in evidence photos during the criminal trial of Jackson's physician was removed from the auction's lots at the request of Jackson's estate. DANNY MOLOSHOK/AP PHOTO
Fans of the King of Pop joined serious collectors at the Beverly Hills auction, which saw a shower bench on which Jackson drew a series of stick figures apparently dancing go for $4,480.
There was a burst of applause when a phone bidder won the auction for the bedroom mirror, part of an armoire, on which Jackson had written a message to motivate himself as he rehearsed in LA for a series of doomed comeback shows in London.
“Train, perfection, March, April, Full out (underlined) May” said the handwritten scrawl, in an apparent reference to the gradual escalation of pace in rehearsals for the “This is It” shows.
The armoire went for $18,750, more than twice its estimated price of $6,000-8,000 at the sale, by celebrity auctioneer Darren Julien, who handled the sale of the contents of Jackson’s Neverland ranch in 2008.
The phone bidder was from Virginia, the auction house said, giving no further details.
The items come from the rented six-bedroom mansion in the plush Holmby Hills district of LA, where Jackson died on June 25, 2009 of an overdose of anesthetic propofol, taken to help him battle insomnia.
His personal doctor Conrad Murray, hired for $150,000 a month to care for the singer during the London shows, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter last month and sentenced to the maximum four years in prison.
The contents of 100 North Carolwood Drive mansion are being sold at auction by the owners of the home rented to Jackson.
But several items have drawn attention from Jackson fans, including the mirror, shower bench and an ornament with a chalkboard on which one of his children had scrawled: “Love daddy, I (heart) you daddy, Smile, it’s for Free.”
One item withdrawn from the sale, announced last month, was the headboard of the bed in which Jackson died, after the Jackson family objected to selling what would have become morbid memorabilia of the late King of Pop.
