Tom Petty rocked a hint of a smile, a piercing stare and a black-and-white-striped suit jacket on the U.K. cover for his single “Listen to Her Heart,” the 1978 hit in which he belittles the superficial advances of a romantic rival.
The song helped vault Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers into a decades-long career of rock-and-roll hits and seemingly never-ending tours until Petty’s death in 2017 of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 66.
In an auction that began last week, RR Auction had been selling that satin jacket and more than 40 other items of Petty memorabilia on behalf of an unnamed consignor. The items up for grabs included signed albums, concert posters, a pink guitar strap and clothing worn by the late rocker, including jackets, hats, T-shirts, cowboy boots and a space-themed vest that he wore while performing at Live Aid in 1985.
But on Wednesday, Petty’s family accused RR Auction of selling items that had been “outright stolen,” encouraging fans to boycott the auction and vowing to pursue “all available legal action for the immediate return of these items.” Those accusations led the Boston-based auction house on Thursday to suspend the sale of its Petty memorabilia items and secure them as “a precaution and in respectful deference to the family” as it investigates.
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In advertising the Petty memorabilia, RR Auction claimed it had acquired the items because they had once been the property of Petty’s first wife, Jane Benyo, who got the couple’s Los Angeles home and its contents in their 1996 divorce settlement. In 2015, after she lost the house to foreclosure, the bank took possession of the property and ordered contractors to dispose of the contents inside, the auction house said. This past February, RR Auction’s unnamed consignor bought Petty’s former belongings, several of which were “photomatched” to confirm they had been worn by Petty, according to the auction house.
On Wednesday, Petty’s family released a statement on Instagram accusing the auction house of “offering stolen Tom Petty memorabilia with a completely false provenance,” claiming that all of the items can be traced back to the Petty family’s secured storage facility. Petty’s family members said that RR Auction had refused to tell them on whose behalf they are selling the memorabilia items.
Share this articleShare“But they are clearly stolen,” they said in the statement. “There is no other word for it.”
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Later that day, a lawyer representing RR Auction said it had been cooperating with the Petty family “from the moment they reached out just days ago” and would keep doing so, despite “unnecessary hostile threats of litigation.”
“We take theft allegations such as these very seriously,” lawyer Mark Zaid said in a statement, adding that “we also take seriously any defamatory allegations against our company, which has developed a stellar reputation over the last half-a-century.”
On Thursday, Zaid released a second statement, saying that RR Auction was still “aggressively investigating the … alleged theft” but had withdrawn all of the Petty memorabilia from its auction until the matter was “properly resolved.”
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