Photo: AFP
The dress worn by Marilyn Monroe as she sang “Happy Birthday Mr President” to John F Kennedy has been sold at auction for $4.8m (£3.9m), the BBC reports.
The figure-hugging Jean Louis gown, with 2,500 crystals, was bought by the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum chain, exceeding the $3m guide price.
The company’s vice president said it was “most iconic piece of pop culture that there is”.
Monroe died from a drug overdose just three months after the performance.
The sultry rendition for President Kennedy’s 45th birthday at a 1962 Democratic fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square was one of her last public appearances.
President Kennedy was shot dead a year later.
The dress, which the auction house said was so tight she had to be sewn into it, had previously been bought at auction for $1.3m in 1999 by the late business mogul and collector Martin Zweig.
