Martin Shkreli, the man who notoriously raised the price of an HIV drug his company produces from $13.50 to $750 per pill, has revealed he purchased the one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.”
While it’s not known exactly how much Shkreli paid for the album, Bloomberg reports that he shelled out $2 million for the privilege of owning the only copy of the album that will ever be produced.
“I was a little worried that [Wu-Tang Clan] were going to walk out of the deal,” Shrkeli said, referring to the moment when the group learned of his business practices. “But by then we’d closed. The whole kind of thing since then has been just kind of ‘Well, do we want to announce it’s him? Do we not want to announce it’s him?’ I think they were trying to cover their butts a little bit.”
RZA, the de facto leader of Wu-Tang Clan, told Bloomberg in a statement: “The sale of ‘Once Upon a Time in Shaolin’ was agreed upon in May, well before Martin Skhreli’s [sic] business practices came to light. We decided to give a significant portion of the proceeds to charity.”
Shkreli claims that he has yet to listen to the album, and is instead saving it for a time when he needs a pick me up. “I could be convinced to listen to it earlier if Taylor Swift wants to hear it or something like that,” he said. “But for now, I think I’m going to kind of save it for a rainy day.”
He also says that he is willing to pay other artists to create private albums for him. “It’s almost like the instructions to the band are, ‘Do your best work, however much time it takes, and never compromise anything for me,’” he said. “I just want to hear what you’ve got.”