John Lennon once imagined a world with no possessions.
Imagine his horror if he were to learn that in 2016, someone was willing to pay upwards of $55K to possess a shirt splattered with his actual goddamn blood from the night he was murdered.
People are fucked up, man. So I guess you can’t really blame veteran concierge Jay Hastings for capitalising on their fucked-uppery.
Hastings was working at The Dakota building in New York on the night that Lennon was shot dead by deranged fan Mark David Chapman (pictured above) on December 8th, 1980.
As the story goes, the Beatles legend was shot twice in the back and twice in the shoulder, before collapsing in the entryway of the building. Hastings then came to his aid, took off his glasses and covered him with his suit jacket until paramedics arrived.
Naturally, as the life slipped out of John Lennon, some of the revolutionary musician’s blood seeped into the shirt.
Flash-forward 36 years and zero washes later, and Hastings has put the blood-stained blouse under the hammer.
As SF Gate reports, the gruesome lot was expected to fetch in the region of £7,000 (AU$12,626), but eventually sold for a staggering £31,000 (AU$55,913).
Garry Shrum of Heritage Auctions made the following statement defending the controversial and macabre sale:
“Jay Hastings kept this shirt all these years and never really spoke about it. It has just been sitting in a drawer for years and now he is getting older he felt it was time to sell it.
There are remnants of blood on the shirt. Some people might be appalled but it’s a piece of history. We did ask ourselves ‘is this too dark or wrong to sell’ but I don’t think it is.
He is not exploiting John Lennon’s death. He is telling the story of how he tried to help John Lennon in the last few minutes of his life.”
The auction sale also included a copy of Lennon’s album Double Fantasy – along with a handwritten message that reads: “To Jay, Love John Lennon Yoko Ono” (below).
The buyer has remained anonymous. Let’s just pray to Krishna that it wasn’t that vile pharma-douche Martin Shkreli (pretty much the only thing that could make this whole thing harder to stomach).
Images Via Daily Mail
