Billionaire who bought $6 million fruit at art auction offers to buy 100,000 bananas from NYC vendor
NEW YORK (WABC) -- The billionaire owner of a $6.2 million banana taped to a wall offered to buy 100,000 bananas from the 74-year-old Upper East Side fruit vendor who sold the banana used in the exhibition when it was auctioned last week.
Justin Sun, a Chinese cryptocurrency company founder whose net worth is estimated to be at least $1.4 billion, offered to pay Shah Alam for more fruit.
"To thank Mr. Shah Alam, I've decided to buy 100,000 bananas from his stand in New York's Upper East Side," Sun tweeted Thursday afternoon. "These bananas will be distributed free worldwide through his stand."
Sun, who lives in China, did not say how he plans to buy and distribute the bananas free worldwide, but said that a valid identification will be needed to claim a free one.
Sun purchased Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's absurdist work titled "Comedian" at auction last Wednesday. Bidding started at $800,000, but competition among seven bidders quickly drive its price over $5 million.
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While Cattelan bought the original bananas used in the exhibit at a Miami grocery store, the banana gets refreshed once or twice a week as part of the art installation. The banana that was attached to the exhibit during last week's auction was purchased outside Sotheby's.
On Friday morning, Sun took the banana off the art project and ate it.
Separately, an anonymous New Yorker launched a GoFundMe for Alam and promised to match the first $5,000 raised dollar-for-dollar.
"Do we really want to live in a city where we can shrug off a street vendor who's moved to tears by the fact that he's been made the butt of a joke involving an amount of wealth obscene to him, while celebrating some smartass for figuring out how to make $6 million from that joke? If this utter and gross indifference isn't what ails us, what is?" the fundraiser who only listed their initials "JS" wrote in the GoFundMe description.
"I will walk to the fruit stand myself next week (after Thanksgiving) and take a video of me handing him the money myself," JS wrote. "If I don't find him, GoFundMe will return your money."
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