Dan Steinberg/Associated Press2011 has seen its share of unlikely music-related items put up for auction, from John Lennon's tooth to the Kid A guitar, but this is easily the most morbid of the bunch: Michael Jackson's deathbed. That's right, the very piece of furniture where Dr. Conrad Murray failed to resuscitate the King of Pop the night Jackson died will be sold to the highest bidder. The queen-size bed is just one of hundreds of items from Jackson's Holmby Hills mansion that will be auctioned off on December 17th by Julien's Auctions.
Oddly, the Julien's Auctions page that's advertising the One Hundred Carolwood Drive Auction doesn't even mention the name "Michael Jackson" anywhere in the announcement. Instead, they make it seem like Jackson's final home was a mini-Louvre: Artwork by Carl Johan Neumann, Robert Gibb, Adolf Schreyer, Henri Emilien Rousseau, and many other art world all-stars will be up for sale. "We want to preserve the history of these items," Julien's president Darren Julien told the AP on why they're isolating the fine art from the fact that the adorned the walls of Michael's final home.
Or, it's because the Jacksons are making sure that Julien's does not profit off their most famous member. "[The Jackson family has] done everything we can to ascertain that items from this address are not being auctioned using Michael's name and likeness to enhance the items' value," Katherine Jackson's lawyer Perry Sanders Jr. said. Still, there will be a handful of Jackson items available: A chalkboard where one of Jackson's children scribbled "I (heart) Daddy. SMILE, it's for free" is expected to fetch about $400. An armoire where Jackson wrote on a mirror, "TRAIN, perfection, March April. FULL OUT May," will also draw bids.
And then there's the bed. There's some infamy to that item, since testimony during the involuntary manslaughter trial of Murray revealed that the physician was administering CPR to Jackson while the singer lay lifelessly on the bed. However, Med School 101 teaches doctors that CPR should take place on a hard surface, like the floor, and not a cushy bed featuring "an elaborately carved and gilded Louis XV headboard (est. $3,000 - $4,000)." Because Murray opted to resuscitate Jackson on the bed, Michael's autopsy revealed he suffered cracked ribs on top of the fatal cardiac arrest. But don't let that gruesome little fact stop you from spending your sleeps on the same mattress that Jackson died on. At least someone made the bed before auctioning it off; here's what the scene of the crime looked like when police investigators descended on 100 Carolwood Drive after Jackson died:
Photo of Jackson's bed from the Dr. Conrad Murray trial