Blink-182 star to auction rare Banksy worth millions
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.
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.
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.”
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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.
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.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
The Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s fourth book has been delayed by her publisher.
It comes amid claims that the author lied about her story in her hit first book. Winn previously described the claims as “highly misleading” and called suggestions that her husband had Moth made up his illness “utterly vile”.
In a statement, Penguin Michael Joseph, said it had delayed the publication of Winn’s latest book On Winter Hill – which had been set for release 23 October.
The publisher said the decision had been made in light of “recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health”, which it said had caused “considerable distress” to the author and her family.
“It is our priority to support the author at this time,” the publisher said.
“With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, has made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October.”
A new release date will be announced in due course, the publisher added.
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Winn’s first book, released in 2018, detailed the journey she and husband took along the South West Coast Path – familiarly known as The Salt Path – after they lost their family farm and Moth received a terminal health diagnosis of Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD).
But a report in The Observer disputed key aspects of the 2018 “true” story – which was recently turned into a film starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson.
Raynor and husband Moth (centre) with actors Jason Isaacs (L) and Gillian Anderson (R). Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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As part of the article, published last weekend, The Observer claimed to have spoken to experts who were “sceptical” about elements of Moth’s terminal diagnosis, such as a “lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them”.
In the ensuing controversy, PSPA, a charity that supports people with CBD, cut ties with the couple.
The Observer article also claimed the portrayal of a failed investment in a friend’s business wasn’t true, but said the couple – whose names are Sally and Tim Walker – lost their home after Raynor Winn embezzled money from her employer and had to borrow to pay it back and avoid police action.
Anderson played Winn in a movie about the couple’s journey. Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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It also said that, rather than being homeless, the couple had owned a house in France since 2007.
Winn’s statement said the dispute with her employer wasn’t the reason the couple lost their home – but admitted she may have made “mistakes” while in the job.
“For me it was a pressured time,” she wrote. “It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.”
She admitted being questioned by police but said she wasn’t charged.
The author also said accusations that Moth lied about having CBD/CBS were false and had “emotionally devastated” him.
“I have charted Moth’s condition with such a level of honesty, that this is the most unbearable of the allegations,” Winn wrote on her website.
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