Lady Gaga’s Teacup Brings in $75k At Auction

A teacup and saucer used by pop diva Lady Gaga has sold for more than $75,000 at auction, despite the diva only drinking from it once.

The humble cup (mostly pictured above) and saucer was used by Lady Gaga at a Tokyo press conference just three months after the massive tsunami of March 2011, a disaster that saw 19,000 lives lost, most of them along Japan’s northeastern coast. The cup and saucer attracted a whopping 1,300 bids, and finished with a winning offer of ¥6,011,000.

Lady Gaga had already promised reporters at the press conference that the cup would be auctioned later for charity. It was reportedly marked with her lipstick and featured the message “We pray for Japan” in Japanese. The star also autographed the cup.

Proceeds from the sale, organised by Yahoo! Japan, will be used to assist young Japanese artists who want to study in the U.S., but who were affected by the carnage caused by the tsunami. Payment has apparently been made for the cup, meaning Yahoo! was free to reveal the winning bid. The person behind the final bid is unknown, but Gaga’s popularity in Japan means the total is not all that surprising.

Several other items were being sold to raise funds, but Gaga’s teacup was actually only the second biggest earning lot. Top of the auction pile was a crystal piano used by a Japanese rock star. Mind you, that’s a crystal piano.

The 2011 Japanese tsunami not only killed 19,000 people, but also sparked the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.