Legendary pop singer, Madonna has successfully stopped the auction of a prison break-up letter from rapper, Tupac Shakur, a note in which she called s
Legendary pop singer, Madonna has successfully stopped the auction of a prison break-up letter from rapper, Tupac Shakur, a note in which she called singer Whitney Houston and actress Sharon Stone horribly mediocre, as well as a pair of her worn underpants, a hairbrush containing her own hair, an old cheque book, personal photos and several other items from the sale. The ‘Say a Prayer’ singer filed a request in New York Supreme Court for a temporary restraining order against New York auction house, Gotta Have It Collectibles, to halt the sale, which was due to start on Wednesday.
A note addressed to a ‘J’ believed to be actor, John Enos, whom the pop star briefly dated, was expected to fetch at least $5,000 because in it, Madonna called Whitney Houston and Sharon Stone ‘horribly mediocre.’ Madonna said in court documents that she was not aware until reading press reports that many of the items listed for auction, including the letter from her former boyfriend Tupac, were no longer in her possession.
The items were consigned to auction by Darlene Lutz, whom Madonna described in court documents as a former friend and art consultant, and said her trust had been betrayed in an outrageous effort to obtain her possessions without her knowledge or consent. A representative for the auction house and Lutz said Madonna’s effort to stop the sale was a completely baseless and meritless action, and they would challenge her claims in court.
“We believe that her intent is nothing more than to be smirch the good reputations of the auction house and Ms Lutz,” according to a statement from the auction house.
In a letter dated January 1995 and written to Madonna by Tupac while he was in prison for sexual assault, the rapper said he ended their romance because he felt that dating a white woman could jeopardise his career and let down half of the people who made him what h e is. He added that he never meant to hurt her. Tupac was killed at age 25 in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996.
In another letter that was to be auctioned, from the early 1990s, Madonna voiced her frustration at not having a music career like Houston or film career like Stone.
“Not because I want to be these women, because I’d rather die, but they’re so horribly mediocre and they’re always being held up as paragons of virtue (or) some sort of measuring stick to humiliate me,” she said in the letter.
While Whitney Houston drowned in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub in 2012, Sharon Stone said in a Facebook post last week that she is friends with Madonna, adding: “I love and adore you; won’t be pitted against you by any invasion of our personal journeys.”
