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Blink-182 star Mark Hoppus is set to auction a rare Banksy painting that is estimated to be worth up to £5m.

The 52-year-old musician, singer and bassist in the punk-rock trio acquired the work with his wife Skye Everly in 2011.

Crude Oil (Vettriano) was first exhibited by Banksy in 2005 and is the anonymous artist’s reimagining of Jack Vettriano’s career-defining The Singing Butler from 1992, which itself was auctioned by Sotheby’s for £744,800 in 2004.

Blink-182 star Mark Hoppus is auctioning Banksy’s Crude Oil (Vettriano) through Sotheby's. Pic: Sotheby's
Image:
Pic: Sotheby’s

Now, the hand-painted Banksy will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in London, with some of the proceeds to be donated to causes including the California Fire Foundation, which helps people impacted by the LA wildfires, a children’s hospital, and a cancer research centre.

“We loved this painting since the moment we saw it,” Hoppus said. “It’s borne witness to our family over these past dozen years. It hung over the table in London where we ate breakfast and our son did his homework. It hung in our living room in Los Angeles…

“This painting has meant so much to us and been such an amazing part of our lives, and now I’m excited for it to be out there in the world, seen by as many as possible.”

The Blink-182 star said he would also use the proceeds to buy works by up-and-coming artists.

Travis Barker, left, Mark Hoppus, and Tom DeLonge of Blink-182 on stage at the Coachella festival in California in 2023. Pic: Amy Harris/Invision/AP
Image:
Blink-182 (L-R) Travis Barker, Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge on stage at the Coachella festival in California in 2023. Pic: Amy Harris/Invision/AP

The singer added: “Coming back to punk rock, one aspect of the community I always hold dear is, if you get lucky enough to gain success, you bring your friends with you.

“Larger bands bring smaller bands on tour. We support one another from within. I want to take some of the money from the sale of this painting and use it to buy works from younger, upcoming artists.”

Read more:
Tom DeLonge interview on UFO research
Does Banksy’s fame eclipse political value?

Hoppus revealed he had been diagnosed with stage four diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in June 2021, but after chemotherapy he announced he was free from cancer just a few months later.

He rose to fame after forming Blink-182 alongside guitarist and vocalist Tom DeLonge and drummer Travis Barker in 1992, and the trio went on to define the pop-punk genre with hits such as The Rock Show, All The Small Things, What’s My Age Again?, and I Miss You.

DeLonge left the group at the beginning of 2015, but returned in 2022 following his bandmate’s diagnosis.

Hoppus’s memoir, Fahrenheit-182, is due to be released in April.

The design on the police box differs from Banksy's previous silhouette designs. Pic: Yui Mok/PA
Image:
Banksy painted a series of animal images, including piranhas in a police box, across London last year. Pic: Yui Mok/PA


Crude Oil (Vettriano) will be on display at Sotheby’s in New York this week before being brought to the UK for a preview exhibition starting on 26 February. It will then headline Sotheby’s Modern And Contemporary Evening Auction in London on 4 March.

“Street art and punk rock share the same vocabulary – they speak to the outsider, the rebel and the overlooked,” said Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s Europe chairman.

“Both movements were born from the margins. They challenge authority and re-write the rules, a fundamental trait shared by Mark and Banksy.”

Last year, Banksy made headlines by painting a series of animal works across London, one a day for nine days, including a rhino which appeared to be mounting a parked car, and a gorilla lifting a shutter at London Zoo.

In February, London Museum announced it had acquired one of the works – piranhas painted on a police sentry box, resembling a fish tank.

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Harper Lee mystery:  Is there a To Kill A Mockingbird prequel and true crime novel ‘waiting to be published’?

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Harper Lee mystery:  Is there a To Kill A Mockingbird prequel and true crime novel 'waiting to be published'?

One of Harper Lee’s surviving relatives says it’s possible there could be major unpublished works by the author still to be discovered, following the release of eight of her previously unseen short stories.

Describing the mystery around a manuscript titled The Long Goodbye, which Lee wrote before To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee’s nephew, Dr Edwin Conner, told Sky News: “Even the family doesn’t know everything that remains in her papers. So, it could be there waiting to be published.”

Dr Conner says Lee submitted a 111-page manuscript, titled The Long Goodbye, after writing Go Set A Watchman in 1957.

The retired English professor explains: “It’s not clear to me or to others in the family, to what extent [The Long Goodbye] might have been integrated into To Kill a Mockingbird, which she wrote immediately after, or to what extent it was a freestanding manuscript that is altogether different and that might stand to be published in the future.”

Lee researched Reverend Maxwell's death, but no book was ever published. Pic: AP
Image:
Lee researched Reverend Maxwell’s death, but no book was ever published. Pic: AP

A second mystery exists in the form of a true crime novel, The Reverend, which Lee was known to have begun researching in the late 1970s, about Alabama preacher Reverend Willie Maxwell who was accused of five murders before being murdered himself.

Dr Conner said: “The manuscript of a nonfiction piece, that according to some people doesn’t exist, according to others who claim to have seen it, does [is also a mystery]. We don’t know where it is, or whether it is, really.

“That could be a surprise that has yet to be revealed if we discover it and it’s published, which is a real possibility.”

More on Literature

He believes much of the manuscript was written in his family home and says his mother, Louise, who was Lee’s older sister, saw a “finished version of it” on the dining room table.

Dr Conner says there are “others who just as fiercely say no, it was never completed”.

A C Lee (L) - the inspiration for Atticus Finch with his grandchildren, including Edwin Conner (C), in 1953
Image:
A C Lee (L) – the inspiration for Atticus Finch with his grandchildren, including Edwin Conner (C), in 1953

‘She did want to publish these stories’

There has long been debate over why Lee published just two books in her lifetime.

To Kill a Mockingbird came out in 1960. Selling more than 46 million copies worldwide, translated into more than 40 languages and winning a Pulitzer Prize, it’s arguably the most influential American book of the 20th century.

Fifty-five years later, Lee published a sequel, Go Set A Watchman, written ahead of Mockingbird, but set at a later date.

Then aged 88, and with failing health, there were questions over how much influence Lee had over the decision to publish.

Asked how happy she’d be to see some of her earliest work, containing early outlines for Mockingbird’s narrator Jean Louise Finch and the story’s hero Atticus Finch, now hitting the shelves, Dr Conner says: “I think she’d be delighted.”

A previously unseen image of one of Lee's short story transcripts. Pic: Harper Lee Estate
Image:
A previously unseen image of one of Lee’s short story transcripts. Pic: Harper Lee Estate

He says Lee had presented them to her first agent, Maurice Crane, at their first meeting in 1956, “precisely because she did want to publish these stories”.

And while dubbing them “apprentice stories,” which he admits “don’t represent her at her best as a writer,” he says they show “literary genius of a kind”.

Notoriously private, he says the stories – which were discovered neatly typed out in one of Lee’s New York apartments after her death – offer “deeply enthralling new glimpses into her as a person”.

Never marrying or having children, he says Lee maintained a degree of privacy even with her family: “You never saw her complete personality… We thought we knew her, we thought we’d seen everything, but no, we hadn’t.”

George W Bush awards Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. Pic: Reuters
Image:
George W Bush awards Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. Pic: Reuters

‘That’s it, I’m not giving any more interviews’

While describing her as a “complicated woman,” he insists Lee was far from the recluse she’s frequently painted as.

He says: “In company, she was most of the time delightful. She was a lively personality, she was funny, witty, and you would think she was very outgoing.”

But Lee was known to have struggled with her success.

Dr Conner explains: “She never ever wanted fame or celebrity because she suspected, or knew, that would involve the kind of uncomfortable situations in public situations that she found just no satisfaction or pleasure in”.

He says while in the early years of Mockingbird Lee gave interviews, the wild success of the book soon rendered such promotion unnecessary, leading her to decide: “That’s it, I’m not giving any more interviews”.

While he admits she was subsequently much happier, he goes on: “Not that she was a recluse, as some people thought. She wasn’t at all a recluse, but she didn’t enjoy public appearances and interviews particularly. She wanted the work to speak for itself.”

Truman Capote and Harper Lee in April 1963. Pic: AP/The Broadmoor Historic Collection
Image:
Truman Capote and Harper Lee in April 1963. Pic: AP/The Broadmoor Historic Collection

‘Deeply hurt’ by Truman Capote

Famously close to Truman Capote, one of the pieces in Lee’s newly released collection is a profile of her fellow author.

Dr Conner says that piece – a love-letter of sorts, describing Capote’s literary achievements – is all the more remarkable because at the point Lee wrote it in 1966, when she and Capote “were not even on speaking terms”.

He says Lee “probably knew [Capote] better than any other person alive when that was written”, adding, “she did love him as a friend very much, even when he was not speaking to her”.

Friends since childhood – and the prototype for the character of Dill in Mockingbird – Capote later hired Lee to help him research his 1965 true crime novel In Cold Blood.

Despite his book’s relative success, Dr Conner believes Capote was “bitter” over the fact Mockingbird far eclipsed it in accolades and recognition.

“He had been writing for much longer. He felt that he was at least as good as she was, and he was very envious of her success”.

Dr Conner says Lee was “deeply hurt” at Capote’s rejection of her, never speaking about him in later life.

Recalling his own meeting with Capote many years later, Dr Conner says he “got a personal sense of how [Capote] could charm the socks off of anybody, male or female”.

He says it was noteworthy that while Capote asked about his mother, who he had been fond of, he “never once mentioned” Harper.

Sky News has contacted Lee’s lawyer and the executor of her estate, Tonya Carter, for comment.

The Land of Sweet Forever: Stories and Essays, by Harper Lee is on sale from Tuesday

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No more investigations into ‘non-crime hate incidents’ after Linehan case, Met Police says

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No more investigations into 'non-crime hate incidents' after Linehan case, Met Police says

Metropolitan Police is to stop investigating “non-crime hate incidents” to “reduce ambiguity” after prosecutors dropped a case against Graham Linehan.

Linehan, 57, will face no further action after being arrested over his social media posts about transgender people.

The Father Ted and IT Crowd creator said his lawyers had been told the case wouldn’t proceed. The Crown Prosecution Service confirmed the move.

Linehan, 57, was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence when he landed at Heathrow from his home in the US on 1 September.

The incident drew criticism of the police and government from some politicians and free-speech campaigners.

Met Police said today it would stop investigating “non-crime hate incidents” to “reduce ambiguity” and “provide clearer direction for officers”.

Posting on X, Linehan announced : “After a successful hearing to get my bail conditions lifted (one which the police officer in charge of the case didn’t even bother to attend) the Crown Prosecution Service has dropped the case.

More on Graham Linehan

“With the aid of the Free Speech Union, I still aim to hold the police accountable for what is only the latest attempt to silence and suppress gender critical voices on behalf of dangerous and disturbed men.”

The union said it had hired a “top flight team of lawyers to sue the Met for wrongful arrest, among other things”.

“The police need to be taught a lesson that they cannot allow themselves to be continually manipulated by woke activists,” it added.

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson confirmed it had reviewed the case file and decided “no further action” would be taken.

Linehan said he had to be taken to hospital on the day of his arrest. Pic: PA
Image:
Linehan said he had to be taken to hospital on the day of his arrest. Pic: PA

In one of his posts, Linehan wrote: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”

Another was a photo of a trans-rights protest, with the comment “a photo you can smell”, and a follow-up post saying: “I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** em.”

A Met Police statement after the case was dropped acknowledged “concern” around Linehan’s arrest.

It added: “The commissioner has been clear he doesn’t believe officers should be policing toxic culture war debates, with current laws and rules on inciting violence online leaving them in an impossible position.

“As a result, the Met will no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents.

“We believe this will provide clearer direction for officers, reduce ambiguity and enable them to focus on matters that meet the threshold for criminal investigations.”

Linehan said on his blog that his was arrested by five armed officers and had to go to A&E after his blood pressure reached “stroke territory” during his interrogation.

Police said the officers’ guns were never drawn and were only present as Linehan was detained by the aviation unit, which routinely carries firearms.

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Farage likens UK to North Korea in Congress

Read more:
Linehan: Satire ‘dying’ and Father Ted wouldn’t be made today
What you can’t say online

JK Rowling, who’s regularly shared her views on women’s rights in relation to transgender rights, was among those who had criticised the arrest, calling it “utterly deplorable”.

Reform’s Nigel Farage, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, and ex-foreign secretary Sir James Cleverly also hit out at the treatment of Linehan.

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Harper Lee mystery:  Is there a To Kill A Mockingbird prequel and true crime novel ‘waiting to be published’?

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Harper Lee mystery:  Is there a To Kill A Mockingbird prequel and true crime novel 'waiting to be published'?

One of Harper Lee’s surviving relatives says it’s possible there could be major unpublished works by the author still to be discovered, following the release of eight of her previously unseen short stories.

Describing the mystery around a manuscript titled The Long Goodbye, which Lee wrote before To Kill A Mockingbird, Lee’s nephew, Dr Edwin Conner, told Sky News: “Even the family doesn’t know everything that remains in her papers. So, it could be there waiting to be published.”

Dr Conner says Lee submitted a 111-page manuscript, titled The Long Goodbye, after writing Go Set A Watchman in 1957.

The retired English professor explains: “It’s not clear to me or to others in the family, to what extent [The Long Goodbye] might have been integrated into To Kill a Mockingbird, which she wrote immediately after, or to what extent it was a freestanding manuscript that is altogether different and that might stand to be published in the future.”

Lee researched Reverend Maxwell's death, but no book was ever published. Pic: AP
Image:
Lee researched Reverend Maxwell’s death, but no book was ever published. Pic: AP

A second mystery exists in the form of a true crime novel, The Reverend, which Lee was known to have begun researching in the late 1970s, about Alabama preacher Reverend Willie Maxwell who was accused of five murders before being murdered himself.

Dr Conner said: “The manuscript of a nonfiction piece, that according to some people doesn’t exist, according to others who claim to have seen it, does [is also a mystery]. We don’t know where it is, or whether it is, really.

“That could be a surprise that has yet to be revealed if we discover it and it’s published, which is a real possibility.”

More on Literature

He believes much of the manuscript was written in his family home and says his mother, Louise, who was Lee’s older sister, saw a “finished version of it” on the dining room table.

Dr Conner says there are “others who just as fiercely say no, it was never completed”.

A C Lee (L) - the inspiration for Atticus Finch with his grandchildren, including Edwin Conner (C), in 1953
Image:
A C Lee (L) – the inspiration for Atticus Finch with his grandchildren, including Edwin Conner (C), in 1953

‘She did want to publish these stories’

There has long been debate over why Lee published just two books in her lifetime.

To Kill a Mockingbird came out in 1960. Selling more than 46 million copies worldwide, translated into more than 40 languages and winning a Pulitzer Prize, it’s arguably the most influential American book of the 20th century.

Fifty-five years later, Lee published a sequel, Go Set A Watchman, written ahead of Mockingbird, but set at a later date.

Then aged 88, and with failing health, there were questions over how much influence Lee had over the decision to publish.

Asked how happy she’d be to see some of her earliest work, containing early outlines for Mockingbird’s narrator Jean Louise Finch and the story’s hero Atticus Finch, now hitting the shelves, Dr Conner says: “I think she’d be delighted.”

A previously unseen image of one of Lee's short story transcripts. Pic: Harper Lee Estate
Image:
A previously unseen image of one of Lee’s short story transcripts. Pic: Harper Lee Estate

He says Lee had presented them to her first agent, Maurice Crane, at their first meeting in 1956, “precisely because she did want to publish these stories”.

And while dubbing them “apprentice stories,” which he admits “don’t represent her at her best as a writer,” he says they show “literary genius of a kind”.

Notoriously private, he says the stories – which were discovered neatly typed out in one of Lee’s New York apartments after her death – offer “deeply enthralling new glimpses into her as a person”.

Never marrying or having children, he says Lee maintained a degree of privacy even with her family: “You never saw her complete personality… We thought we knew her, we thought we’d seen everything, but no, we hadn’t.”

George W Bush awards Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. Pic: Reuters
Image:
George W Bush awards Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. Pic: Reuters

‘That’s it, I’m not giving any more interviews’

While describing her as a “complicated woman,” he insists Lee was far from the recluse she’s frequently painted as.

He says: “In company, she was most of the time delightful. She was a lively personality, she was funny, witty, and you would think she was very outgoing.”

But Lee was known to have struggled with her success.

Dr Conner explains: “She never ever wanted fame or celebrity because she suspected, or knew, that would involve the kind of uncomfortable situations in public situations that she found just no satisfaction or pleasure in”.

He says while in the early years of Mockingbird Lee gave interviews, the wild success of the book soon rendered such promotion unnecessary, leading her to decide: “That’s it, I’m not giving any more interviews”.

While he admits she was subsequently much happier, he goes on: “Not that she was a recluse, as some people thought. She wasn’t at all a recluse, but she didn’t enjoy public appearances and interviews particularly. She wanted the work to speak for itself.”

Truman Capote and Harper Lee in April 1963. Pic: AP/The Broadmoor Historic Collection
Image:
Truman Capote and Harper Lee in April 1963. Pic: AP/The Broadmoor Historic Collection

‘Deeply hurt’ by Truman Capote

Famously close to Truman Capote, one of the pieces in Lee’s newly released collection is a profile of her fellow author.

Dr Conner says that piece – a love-letter of sorts, describing Capote’s literary achievements – is all the more remarkable because at the point Lee wrote it in 1966, when she and Capote “were not even on speaking terms”.

He says Lee “probably knew [Capote] better than any other person alive when that was written”, adding, “she did love him as a friend very much, even when he was not speaking to her”.

Friends since childhood – and the prototype for the character of Dill in Mockingbird – Capote later hired Lee to help him research his 1965 true crime novel In Cold Blood.

Despite his book’s relative success, Dr Conner believes Capote was “bitter” over the fact Mockingbird far eclipsed it in accolades and recognition.

“He had been writing for much longer. He felt that he was at least as good as she was, and he was very envious of her success”.

Dr Conner says Lee was “deeply hurt” at Capote’s rejection of her, never speaking about him in later life.

Recalling his own meeting with Capote many years later, Dr Conner says he “got a personal sense of how [Capote] could charm the socks off of anybody, male or female”.

He says it was noteworthy that while Capote asked about his mother, who he had been fond of, he “never once mentioned” Harper.

Sky News has contacted Lee’s lawyer and the executor of her estate, Tonya Carter, for comment.

The Land of Sweet Forever: Stories and Essays, by Harper Lee is on sale from Tuesday

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