Madonna just lost a court battle stopping an online auction of some intimate belongings including a pair of satin lingerie, a brush containing her hair and a breakup letter from a former boyfriend, the late rapper Tupac Shakur.
Earlier this week, a New York state appeals court in Manhattan cleared the way for an auction, saying Madonna could not pursue claims against art advisor and her former friend Darlene Lutz, or the GottaHaveRockandRoll.com online auction website, to which Lutz consigned the items for sale.
It is said Madonna’s claims were barred by a “very broad” release in her 2004 settlement agreement with Lutz, who was “free to do with the property as she wished” as its rightful owner.
Madonna, 60, had said she did not know until learning about the auction that Lutz, who worked for the singer from 1981 to 2003, possessed the more than 20 disputed items.
“The court came to the absolute right decision,” Hartley Bernstein, a lawyer for the defendants, said in an interview. “The property is Ms. Lutz’s to do with as she wishes.”
The handwritten letter from Shakur was dated Jan. 15, 1995, while he was in prison for sexual assault.
It said he was ending his relationship with Madonna because he thought dating a white woman could jeopardize his career.
“I felt due to my ‘image’ I would be letting down half of the people who made me what I thought I was,” Shakur wrote. “I never meant to hurt you.”
GottaHaveRockandRoll.com said the letter could fetch $400,000 at auction, court papers show.
Images via highsnobiety, nme
