The famous jacket sold to Austinite Milton Verret for $1.8 million.
Photo by Matt Sayles/AP
The iconic red "Thriller" jacket was actually one of two used during filming.The other more heavily worn jacket is owned by the Michael Jackson Estate.
Looks like one of the most iconic pieces of music video couture will be finding a new home deep in the heart of Texas.
The ever-recognizable red leather jacket worn by Michael Jackson in the famous "Thriller" video has been auctioned to Austinite Milton Verret, an entrepreneur, philanthropist and gold trader with a somewhat questionable past, for a cool $1.8 million.
According to the Los Angeles Times, a portion of the proceeds from the jacket will go towards Hitchcock blonde Tippi Hedren's Roar Foundation, which has provided sanctuary to Jackson's two Bengal tigers, Thriller and Sabu, since his passing two years ago.
Verret plans to use the jacket to raise funds for various children's charities across the country — much as he did with his Jay Leno autographed motorcycle — starting with its display at Dell Children's hospital in Austin. The proceeds of the motorcycle's sale went to New York-based Bailey's Café, a charity and community arts program for children.
What will be the next $1 million-plus music video costume to fly off the auction block? My money is on the Britney Spears "Toxic" rhinestone-encrusted unitard or maybe the simple black leotard donned by Beyoncé in "Single Ladies."
As the rights and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community have expanded over the past 50 or so years, one part of that group, transgender people, has found it more difficult to be considered a normal part of society. Every new instance of putting the story of a transgender person on screen, whether fictional or real, increases their exposure to those who might never have encountered them before.
That makes a documentary like Will & Harper (a title which seems to take inspiration from the groundbreaking TV series Will & Grace) valuable. The fact that the “Will” in the title is comedian/actor Will Ferrell helps, as he and longtime friend, Harper Steele, embark on a road trip across the United States soon after Harper reveals her transition from a man to a woman.
Harper, who met Will while they were both at Saturday Night Live in the late '90s/early 2000s, decided at the relatively older age of 59 that she could no longer pretend to be someone she wasn’t. The idea of the road trip – and of filming it – came about so that the friends could reconnect, learn more about each other given the momentous change, and do a lot of the things that Harper enjoyed doing by herself prior to her transition.
Director Josh Greenbaum and his crew attach a camera to the hood of Harper’s old Jeep Wagoneer to record her and Will's conversations as they traverse many states, starting in New York and heading west. Their connection to SNL means that many of the show’s current and former stars show up in one form or another along the way, including Tina Fey, Seth Meyers, Tim Meadows, Lorne Michaels, Molly Shannon, Kristen Wiig, and Will Forte, among others.
While their love and respect for Harper is obvious, Harper has trepidation over how strangers in middle America will react to her. The presence of Will (and the cameras) gives her perhaps easier acceptance than someone not traveling with a famous person, but there are still more than a few uncomfortable stops, particularly when they get to the South (Texas does not come off well, but surprisingly Oklahoma does).
Those scenes with everyday Americans are interesting (if occasionally a bit contrived), but the heart of the film is the friendship between Will and Harper. Their conversations range from silly to heartfelt, but there is a genuineness to them that can’t be faked. Harper invites Will to ask her any questions he has about her transition, resulting in insightful – and, often, funny – answers. Their friendship was clearly already strong, but it gets palpably stronger during the 17-day journey.
There are a lot of messages one could get from a film like this, but it’s notable for how apolitical it is. Will and Harper have encounters with Eric Holcomb, the Republican governor of Indiana, as well as a few people wearing MAGA hats, but their positions on transgender people goes unremarked upon. The friends gently correct people who mis-gender Harper, but they never express any animosity towards them. It’s a movie about exploration, with education as a side benefit.
While it might be too strong to say that Will & Harper is a world-changing film, it adds another layer to the story of transgender people as a whole. It also shows the unconditional love between two friends, a lesson that is heartening in divided times.
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Will & Harper is now playing in select theaters; it will debut on Netflix on September 27.