The marketing and merchandising of the late King of Pop has finally taken the inevitable turn for the macabre. Strands of Michael Jackson's barnet that were burnt off during the shooting of a Pepsi commercial in 1984 are being turned into a limited range of jewellery. Diamond jewellery, to be specific. Chicago-based jeweller LifeGem, which "specialises in creating high quality diamonds from individual hair samples", is making an as-yet-undetermined number of diamonds from the hair. Apparently the executive producer of the Pepsi ad, Ralph Cohen, scooped up a bunch of Jackson's charred hair when putting out the fire on his head – using his Armani jacket no less. Now Cohen has teamed up with a collector called John Reznikoff who in turn went to LifeGem. "Our plan is to give people an opportunity to own a diamond made from Michael Jackson's DNA," said Dean VandenBiesen, the founder of LifeGem. "This will be a limited collection and we anticipate great interest." The diamond will be presumably be Jackson Five carat.
