Phoebe Bridgers thought she knew the end of her guitar when she smashed it at the end of her performance during a February episode of “SNL,” but GLAAD had other ideas and they ended up becoming $101,500 richer.
The guitar sold in an auction sponsored by GLAAD, the nongovernmental media-monitoring organization, founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of LGBT people. The sale coincided with their music awards last week in which Bridgers was nominated for outstanding breakthrough music artist.
GLAAD’s Head of Talent Anthony Ramos was eager to see if Bridgers’ guitar would be of any value to his organization especially considering the 26-year-old singer identifies as bisexual.
“I watched the show on Saturday [Feb. 6] and saw Twitter explode about this guitar, and was like, ‘Huh. I wonder what happened with that guitar?’” Ramos said to Variety Magazine. “I bet people would pay some money for this — it’s worth a shot.’”
A discussion was held with Bridgers’ publicist and the semi-intact guitar made its way to Los Angeles where it would eventually go up for sale.
Bidding remained low for most of the auction for a number of days, but thanks in part to Bridgers’ growing fan base, the price quickly rose.
“Saturday night when I went to bed, it was around $18,000, and I was like, ‘That’s a great number!’” Ramos said. “I was kind of hoping we would get to 25. Then I woke up and it was 40, then 50, then 80, and finally over 100. Obviously we were very pleasantly surprised.”
GLAAD cannot disclose the identity of the winning bidder but is grateful for amount of money that will go on and assist members of the LGBTQ community.
“Phoebe is such a visible, out powerhouse in the music industry and we knew that the item was special,” Ramos said in a statement. “But we were so pleasantly surprised to see such a large amount of money raised that will go directly into our work to support and uplift LGBTQ people.”
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