Madonna got her panties in a bunch on Tuesday, going to court to shut down a planned auction of memorabilia including her used underwear. Now the auction house that was facilitating the auction is firing back.
In a statement provided to TheWrap on Wednesday, the Gotta Have Rock and Roll auction house and Darlene Lutz, described as Madonna‘s “former fine art advisor and camp insider” and the consignor of the memorabilia, lashed out at the singer, calling her bid to stop the auction “completely baseless and meritless.”
“Madonna and her legal army have taken what we believe to be a completely baseless and meritless action to temporarily halt the sale of Ms. Lutz’s legal property. We believe that her intent is nothing more than to besmirch the good reputations of the auction house and Ms. Lutz,” Gotta Have Rock and Roll and Lutz said. “Madonna‘s allegations will be vigorously challenged and refuted in a court of law in due course. We are confident that the Madonna memorabilia will be back listed in a future Gotta Have Rock and Roll online auction once the legal proceeding is concluded.”
On Tuesday, Madonna obtained a court order from a Manhattan judge to halt the auction, which was scheduled to occur Wednesday.
The items scheduled to be auctioned off included “personally worn” panties and a letter that Madonna‘s former boyfriend, deceased rapper Tupac Shakur, wrote to the singer while he was incarcerated.
The singer said in an affidavit that prior to hearing about the auction on July 8, she was under the impression that the items were still in her possession.
“I became aware through media reports that there was a planned auction of extremely personal, private correspondence I received from a former boyfriend, the late recording artist and actor Tupac Shakur,” the singer stated in an affidavit. “I was shocked to learn of the planned auctioning of the Shakur Letter, as I had no idea that the Shakur Letter was no longer in my possession. I have never sold, gifted, transferred or otherwise disposed of the Shakur Letter.”
In the affidavit, the singer theorized that Lutz “betrayed my trust in an outrageous effort to obtain my possessions without my knowledge or consent” and is now hoping to score a payday by auctioning the items off.