TOKYO — A teacup and saucer used only once by pop diva Lady Gaga sold for more than $75,000 at auction, the sale’s organizer said Monday.
With more than 1,300 bids, the weeklong auction finished Sunday with a top offer of ¥6,011,000, according to Yahoo Japan, which managed the charity event.
Payment was required before the winning bid could be confirmed, it said.
The cup was used by Lady Gaga at a news conference in Tokyo three months after the massive tsunami of March last year, which swamped a large stretch of coastline.
Lady Gaga told reporters at the time that she would auction the cup, marked with her lipstick and bearing the Japanese message “We pray for Japan” along with the star’s autograph.
All the money raised will be used to help young Japanese artists who want to study in the US.
The teacup was one of a number of items being sold to raise money for those affected by Japan’s worst postwar calamity and was the second most expensive lot, behind a crystal piano used by a Japanese rock star.
The natural disaster killed some 19,000 people on Japan’s northeastern coast and sparked the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.