5 locks of celebrity hair people paid obscene money to own
Celebrity hairstyles keep stylists busy. People want to look like famous people. But owning actual celebrity hair?
Collectors of celebrity memorabilia normally buy things like autographed items or clothing worn by the stars. But if that’s too mundane for you, there’s a whole realm of items that were not just owned by celebrities, but actually a part of them – like their hair. It’s celebrity hairstyles to the power of one hundred.
Creepy as that seems, such collectibles frequently have sky-high price tags. You could buy a nice car or two for the cost of just a few inches of hair from one of the notable people below.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN ($39,000)
The 16th President of the United States is best known for leading the country through the Civil War, ending slavery and, sadly, his tragic 1865 assassination. He isn’t quite known for having the hairstyle of a celebrity. After his death, several pieces of his hair were snipped as “mourning keepsakes,” and one of them was ensconced in a gold locket that wound up fetching almost $39,000 in a 2012 auction.
JUSTIN BIEBER ($41,000)
In 2011, the Biebs cut off his trademark shaggy hair – and while the act wound up costing him a slew of Twitter followers, it also benefited a good cause. Justin gave some of the discarded locks to pal Ellen DeGeneres and asked her to sell it, with the proceeds benefiting a favorite charity. One very busy eBay auction later, almost $41,000 went to California animal-rescue center the Gentle Barn.
JOHN LENNON ($48,000)
When Lennon and the rest of the Beatles took America by storm, their iconic moptop ‘dos got almost as much attention as their music. It was a celebrity hairstyles every boy under the age of eighteen wanted.
Decades later, the Fab Four’s stylist, Betty Glasow, auctioned off a lock of John’s hair he’d tucked inside a signed copy of his book ‘A Spaniard in the Works.’ The inscription? “To Betty, Lots of Love and Hair, John Lennon xx.”
The auction house that conducted the 2007 sale originally estimated the hair might go for as much as $6,000 – but when all was said and done, it went to an anonymous bidder for a staggering $48,000.
CHE GUEVARA ($100,000)
Just before the 1967 burial of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, a CIA operative who helped capture him snipped a piece of his hair as a symbolic gesture. Forty years later, it sold for $100,000 at a Texas auction – but not without some drama first. After the auction house received threats for “profiting from Guevara’s death,” it was forced to hire extra security, but fortunately, nothing happened.
ELVIS PRESLEY ($115,000)
Presley was already world-famous when he was drafted by the US Army in 1958. To his credit, although he was offered the chance to enlist in the Special Services to entertain the troops, he chose instead to enlist as a regular soldier – which meant his famous hair was buzzed into a standard GI cut. Some of what landed on the barber’s floor went on the auction block in 2002, where a buyer shelled out $115,000 for their very own piece of the King.
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