Lennon’s Loo Goes for More Than Expected at Auction
All you need is love. But let’s forget about what you need and talk about what you want — and if that included something very intimate once belonging to John Lennon, his toilet seat made someone very happy over the weekend.
John’s john was one of many items up for grabs on Saturday during the 33rd annual Beatles convention being held in Liverpool, England, and it was almost certainly the most talked about after an unidentified buyer purchased the porcelain seat for about $14,740 — around 10 times its original estimate.
The toilet sat in Lennon’s Berkshire home, Tittenhurst Park, from 1969-1972 and was given to a builder by Lennon after the singer purchased a new one. Lennon supposedly told him to “use it as a plant pot.”
Call it the “Royal Flush Syndrome” if you will, but there does seem to be a strange fascination for historic figures and the places where they found relief.
Maybe it has to do with the number of personalities that met their end in bathrooms.
Elvis Presley, Judy Garland, Lenny Bruce, even popcorn king Orville Redenbacher (among others) all bade adieu from the loo.
Recently, there have also been many headlines that deal with the head.
Who can forget when George Michael was picked up for lewd conduct in 1998 in a public bathroom on Sunset Boulevard, just across from the Beverly Hills Hotel? In 2008, he was busted for dope possession in London. Where? In a public bathroom.
Then there was the strange case of Larry Craig, a Republican senator from Idaho who in 2007 was caught by an undercover cop in an airport stall supposedly signaling a desire to engage in sexual conduct by tapping his foot in a certain way.
Craig wound up pleading guilty to a disorderly conduct charge, but the bathroom, just across from the French Meadow Bakery Cafe in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, became a tourist stop.
This past July, Leonardo DiCaprio created a near riot when he went into a stadium bathroom in South Africa during a FIFA World Cup game. Dozens of fans poured in after him, blowing vuvuzela horns and chanting his name as he tried to relieve himself.
Security saved him, but maybe this was merely a bit of “commode karma.” After all, it was in 2008 that eco-friendly Leo reportedly installed a state-of-the-art, $3,200 Toto Neorest 500 toilet, which came fully loaded with a seat warmer, automatic flusher and remote control.
Rock stars also have had their hands full with toilet troubles.
In 2004, Lenny Kravitz was sued after his toilet backed up and supposedly caused “catastrophic water damage” to a neighbor’s apartment in New York City.
The Dave Matthews Band took things outside that same year, dumping their tour bus’s septic tank while driving over a bridge across the Chicago River. The problem? The waste spattered all over a group of sightseers on a boat below.
The bus driver received 18 months probation, 150 hours of community service and a fine of $10,000.
