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Mon., June 22, 2020

Grunge became gold Saturday as the guitar Kurt Cobain played on Nirvana’s 1993 “MTV Unplugged” performance months before his death sold for an eye-popping $6 million at auction.

The 1959 Martin D-18E that Cobain played in the band’s rare acoustic performance and subsequent live album was sold to Australian Peter Freedman, owner of Røde Microphones, at the Music Icons event run by Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, California.

The bids opened at $1 million for the sale that ended up breaking several world records.

Cobain used it to play tunes including “About a Girl” and “All Apologies” at the Nov. 18, 1993, show in New York that came less than five months before the singer and songwriter died at age 27.

A day earlier at the same auction event, a custom guitar played by Prince at the height of his stardom in the 1980s and 1990s sold for $563,500, well over the $100,000 to $200,000 it was expected to fetch.

Prince played the blindingly blue guitar with the artist’s “love” symbol on its neck beginning on the 1984 Purple Rain Tour, as well as on the classic albums “Lovesexy” and “Sign O’ The Times.” He used it into the early 1990s.

Archivists going through Prince’s possessions at his Paisley Park home and musical headquarters in Minnesota recently found the guitar that was thought to be lost during the four years since his death from an overdose at age 57.

Also Friday, a macramé belt that Elvis Presley wore about 30 times on stage brought in nearly 10 times its expected price with a final bid of $298,000, and an ivory gown worn by Madonna in her 1990 “Vogue” video sold for $179,200.

Hughley COVID-19 positive

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Comedian D.L. Hughley announced he tested positive for COVID-19 after collapsing onstage during a performance in Nashville, Tennessee.

The stand-up comedian, 57, lost consciousness while performing at Zanies comedy nightclub on Friday night and was hospitalized, news outlets reported. On Saturday, Hughley posted a video on Twitter in which he said he was treated for exhaustion and dehydration afterward.

“I also tested positive for COVID-19, which blew me away,” he says in the video. “I was what they call asymptomatic. I didn’t have any symptoms, the classic symptoms.”

Hughley plans to quarantine in his Nashville hotel room for 14 days.

“Thank you for your prayers and your well wishes – and a few more of them wouldn’t hurt,” Hughley says in the video.

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