Just a month after being convicted of securities fraud, notorious pharma bro Martin Shkreli is selling off his one-of-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, which he bought from the legendary Staten Island hip-hop group two years ago for $2 million.
The embattled former drug company exec listed the sole copy of the CD “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” on eBay Tuesday night for a starting price of $1. Within an hour, the bidding hit $55,000 and 100 offers.
Shkreli — notorious for jacking up the price of a life-saving drug for AIDS patients by 5,000 percent — claimed he would give half the proceeds from the auction to “medical research.”
“I am not selling to raise cash–my companies and I have record amounts of cash on hand. I hope someone with a bigger heart for music can be found for this one-of-a-kind piece and makes it available for the world to hear,” Shkreli posted along with the auction listing.
Reached by phone Tuesday night, Shkreli refused to say where he would donate the money or what he would do with the remaining cash. Instead he unleashed a string of expletives and then requested to engage in a lewd act with a reporter.
Shkreli’s Facebook and YouTube channel included links to the auction page Tuesday night.
He bought the album for $2 million in a 2015 auction. It was the only one sold by the rap group and it came with the reported rider that he not play it commercially for 88 years, though he could supposedly play it for free during parties.
The ever-arrogant Shkreli broadcast tracks to celebrate Donald Trump’s election victory and played them after his conviction in early August for defrauding investors in what prosecutors described as an $11 million Ponzi-style scheme, which he bizarrely called a victory even though he is facing 20 years in prison.
His status as the “most hated man in America” made jury selection in that case particularly tough — prosecutors and defense attorneys had to wade through more than 130 jurors to find peers who didn’t already hate Shkreli’s guts.
One was dismissed after saying he couldn’t be partial in the face of Shkreli’s “disrespecting the Wu-Tang Clan.”
Wu-Tang member Ghostface Killah blasted Shkreli as a fake “a– super villain” after he bought the album.
Shkreli claimed he would pay up to $25,000 in legal fees related to the sale. The auction is set to last until Sept. 15.
“Upon sale, I will represent & warranty any copies of the music I have will be destroyed. I have not carefully listened to the album, which is a double CD. There is also a finely crafted booklet which you can read about elsewhere,” Shkreli said, apparently alluding to the Long Island artist who sued him last year because the album packaging contains artwork the artist claimed he was never paid for.
But Shkreli warned he may backtrack on the sale.
“At any time I may cancel this sale and I may even break this album in frustration,” he wrote.
By Max Jaeger
