Little-known Michael Jackson chocolate bars are selling for up to $3,000 on eBay following huge biopic success
Michael Jackson's legacy lives on, and while the King of Pop passed away in 2009 at the age of just 50, interest in him (both positive and negative) has never gone away.
Despite Jackson reportedly being up to $500 million in debt and facing over 65 creditor claims at the time of passing, the Michael Jackson Estate is said to earn over $105 million in annual income.
It's generated $3.5 billion in total earnings since 2009, thanks mainly to the likes of music sales and MJ: The Musical. That number is sure to get a boost in 2026 thanks to Antoine Fuqua's Michael.
The musical biopic is breaking records, and although it's got a paltry 39% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences love it, and it broke records for the biggest opening day for a biographical film.
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Lionsgate chairman Adam Fogelson has confirmed a sequel is on the way, while Fuqua already said enough footage was filmed to warrant another outing.
Not that Michael Jackson ever really went away, but with a renewed interest in the artist, some pretty unusual memorabilia is doing the rounds.
Why are people buying Michael Jackson chocolate bars?
Over on eBay, there's currently a listing for an unopened chocolate bar from 1989. While you might be questioning why anyone would want a 37-year-old chocolate, its $325 price tag is even more astounding.
To celebrate the release of 1988's Moonwalker, Starchoc S.A. Geneva released three limited edition chocolate bars. These included the premium Swiss milk chocolate, semi-sweet dark chocolate, and Swiss milk chocolate with broken hazelnuts. These have become an unusual collector's item, namely because they had a wide release in Europe but were much harder to come by in the USA.
As the eBay listing warns, eating this chocolate isn't advised, with the seller adding: "I wouldn't eat the chocolate inside -- it's been decades! It's probably chocolate dust at this point."
Why have one chocolate bar when you can have 31? In a separate eBay listing that's now been removed due to an apparent mistake, you could stump up a cool $2,900 for a whole box of the Moonwalker bars.
The OP claims to have come across them because they were responsible for distributing them, but to be honest, we don't know what you'd do with 31 chocolate bars that cost you $94 each.
Even more strange is the fact that Jackson might not even have been a fan of chocolate himself. The "Bad" singer's bizarre flight requests recently resurfaced, showing he had something of a KFC addiction, having it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Alongside peanut butter and broccoli, his passenger requests stated that no chocolate was to be served.
What's the most expensive Michael Jackson memorabilia?
$3,000 for a box of chocolate bars is pocket change compared to what others have spent collecting the wares of Michael Jackson. Seen as the home of Michael Jackson memorabilia, Julien's Auctions reminds us that the "Jam" music video basketball that's co-signed with Michael Jordan sold for $304,000, his Bad era crystal glove made $330,000, and his iconic rhinestone glove from his Motown 25 moonwalk fetched $420,000.
Of course, all of these pale in comparison to his red "Thriller" jacket, which entered the Guinness World Record books when it was sold for $1.8 million.
It's not just us laymen collecting chocolate bars and tour jackets, as in 2012, Lady Gaga splashed the cash to acquire 55 garments from a single sale, hoping to archive them "in the spirit and love of Michael Jackson."
The auction house notes: "These prices are the market's way of putting a number on cultural weight — of saying, collectively and publicly, what it means to hold in your hands an object that was present when history was made."
It could be time to check the attic and see if your parents have any old MJ chocolate bars lying around.