Bizarre Belongings Auctioned by Celebrities
Celebrity memorabilia has always been big business, but some stars have taken the concept to truly strange places. When you mix devoted fans with deep pockets and a celebrity willing to part with just about anything, you get auction items that defy all logic.
From body parts to bodily fluids, the world of celebrity auctions has seen it all. These sales often support great causes, with many celebrities donating proceeds to charity.
Others simply want to declutter or make headlines. Here is a list of bizarre belongings auctioned by celebrities that prove people will buy absolutely anything if it once belonged to someone famous.
Justin Timberlake’s French Toast
Back in 2000, a teenage fan paid over $1,000 for something most people would scrape into the trash. When Justin Timberlake appeared on New York’s Z-100 radio station for an interview, he didn’t finish his breakfast.
The DJ spotted an opportunity and listed the leftover French toast on eBay, where 19-year-old Kathy Summers won the bidding war at $1,025. She told reporters she planned to freeze-dry it, seal it, and display it on her dresser like some kind of carb-based trophy.
Scarlett Johansson’s Used Tissue
During a 2008 appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Scarlett Johansson came down with a cold she claimed was courtesy of Samuel L. Jackson. When she needed to blow her nose, she saw a chance to turn her illness into charity fundraising.
She signed the tissue-filled bag and put it up on eBay, where it sold for $5,300. The entire amount went to charity, proving that one person’s used Kleenex is another person’s tax-deductible donation.
William Shatner’s Kidney Stone
The Star Trek legend took organ donation to a whole new level in 2006 when he decided to auction off his kidney stone. Shatner joked about the stone being so large you could wear it as a ring, and suggested that with enough heat, it might turn into a diamond.
The online casino GoldenPalace.com purchased it for $25,000, and Shatner donated every penny to Habitat for Humanity. At least something good came from his pain.
John Lennon’s Tooth
A Beatles fan with deep pockets and questionable taste spent $31,000 on one of John Lennon’s molars in 2011. The tooth had been given to Lennon’s housekeeper, Dot Jarlett, back in the 1960s as a gift for her daughter.
A Canadian dentist ultimately won the auction, which makes a certain professional sense. The tooth was too fragile for DNA testing, but it was authenticated through other methods before the sale.
Lady Gaga’s Acrylic Fingernail
Lady Gaga’s elaborate nail art is part of her signature look, so when one of her custom acrylic nails went missing during a concert, a crew member knew it had value. The black nail, decorated with gold glitter and beads and hand-painted by her personal manicurist, sold at auction in 2013 for $12,000.
The buyer also received a photograph of Gaga wearing the nail at the concert where it first went AWOL.
Russell Crowe’s Jockstrap
When Russell Crowe held his ‘Art of Divorce’ auction in 2018, the leather jockstrap he wore in Cinderella Man became a surprise hit. Expected to sell for around $600, it went for $7,000 to comedian John Oliver’s HBO show Last Week Tonight.
Oliver donated it to Alaska’s last Blockbuster Video store, though the jockstrap’s current whereabouts remain a mystery after that location closed. Crowe used Oliver’s money to fund a koala chlamydia treatment ward at the Australia Zoo, which was then named after Oliver.
J.K. Rowling’s Writing Chair
The chair where J.K. Rowling sat while writing the first two Harry Potter books sold for $394,000 in 2016. She had decorated the wooden chair herself with rose and green paint, and wrote ‘I wrote Harry Potter while sitting on this chair’ on it.
The piece of literary history went to an anonymous buyer who presumably understood that great stories need humble beginnings. You can’t put a price on magic, but apparently you can put one on the furniture where it was created.
Elvis Presley’s Hair
A lock of hair from the King of Rock and Roll fetched $18,300 at a 2009 Chicago auction. The hair was reportedly cut when Elvis joined the U.S. Army in 1958, and was sold by Gary Pepper, the late president of the Tankers Fan Club.
While no DNA testing was conducted, the hair was authenticated by John Reznikoff, an expert in celebrity hair authentication, which is apparently a real job. The winning bidder’s identity remains unknown, but they paid well above the expected $8,000 to $12,000 range.
David Bowie’s Hair
Another music legend, another lucrative hair sale. A roughly two-inch snippet of David Bowie’s hair from his ‘Let’s Dance’ era sold for $18,750 in 2016.
The hair came from a wig maker at London’s Madame Tussauds wax museum, who had kept it for decades after using it as a reference for Bowie’s wax figure. The seller waited until after Bowie’s death to auction it, and the price far exceeded the $4,000 estimate.
Willie Nelson’s Braids
When Willie Nelson decided to cut off his signature braids in 1983, he gave them to his friend Waylon Jennings as a memento. Those braids eventually sold in 2014 for $37,000 to an anonymous bidder.
The country music icon’s hair had become so iconic that parting with it made headlines, and keeping it apparently made someone a small fortune three decades later.
Marilyn Monroe’s X-Rays
In 1954, Marilyn Monroe underwent treatment for endometriosis and had chest x-rays taken at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. More than 50 years later, in 2010, those three x-ray images sold at auction for $45,000, far exceeding the $3,000 estimate.
The buyer essentially paid to own medical images of one of Hollywood’s most famous stars, which feels invasive even by celebrity memorabilia standards.
John Lennon’s Toilet
A Beatles fan with $14,800 to spare purchased a flowered porcelain toilet that once belonged to John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The decorative loo came from Tittenhurst Park, the English estate where Lennon recorded his Imagine album.
When Lennon had the toilet replaced, he told the builders to ‘put some flowers in it or something,’ and they took him literally. The buyer got a piece of bathroom history from one of music’s most legendary locations.
Rihanna’s Cracked iPhone
During a 2014 Los Angeles Clippers playoff game, Rihanna accidentally cracked the iPhone belonging to Steve Soboroff, then President of the Los Angeles Police Commission, while trying to take a selfie with him. She apologized on Twitter and donated $25,000 to a charity for police officers and their families.
Soboroff then auctioned the signed, cracked phone on eBay, where it sold for $56,000 to benefit the Los Angeles Police Foundation. One clumsy moment turned into over $80,000 for charity.
Justin Bieber’s Hair
When Justin Bieber got a haircut in 2011, Ellen DeGeneres seized the opportunity to auction off a lock of his hair for charity. The hair sold for $40,668, with proceeds going to an animal rights group called The Gentle Barn.
At the time, Bieber was at peak teen idol status, and his fans were willing to pay outrageous amounts for anything associated with him. A snippet of hair was apparently worth more than most people’s annual salary.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s Jarred Air
Someone at the Mr. and Mrs. Smith premiere in 2005 had a brilliantly absurd idea. They captured air that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had just walked through and sealed it in a Mason jar.
The eBay listing included the unforgettable description: ‘Be the first to own this jar of celebrity air, which may contain air molecules that came in direct contact with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.’ Bidding reached an astounding $75,000 before the auction was taken down. You can’t make this stuff up.
Britney Spears’ Pregnancy Test
An Ottawa radio station somehow obtained what they claimed was Britney Spears’ positive pregnancy test from a Los Angeles hotel where she and then-husband Kevin Federline had stayed in 2005. The station waited until Spears publicly confirmed her pregnancy before revealing they had the test, presumably to add legitimacy to their bizarre claim.
While there was no concrete proof the test belonged to Spears, the station tried to auction it on eBay, though details about whether a sale was completed remain unclear.
Princess Diana’s Velvet Gown
Princess Diana wore a stunning midnight blue velvet gown when she famously danced with John Travolta at the White House in 1985. The dress sold at auction in 2013 for $347,000 to an anonymous buyer who called it a ‘surprise for his wife.’ The dress sold again in 2019 for $320,000, this time purchased by Historic Royal Palaces. That’s one expensive piece of Saturday Night Fever nostalgia, even if it comes with royal provenance.
From Oddities to Legacies
What started as strange curiosities have become valuable pieces of pop culture history. These bizarre auction items prove that celebrity culture has reached levels our grandparents never could have imagined, where even the most mundane or personal items gain value simply through association with fame.
The auctions continue today, with new generations of celebrities finding creative ways to monetize everything from their closets to their medical waste. Whether it’s for charity, publicity, or pure profit, one thing remains certain—fans will always find new ways to get closer to the stars they admire, even if that means owning their discarded body parts or bathroom fixtures.
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