The Cheap Plastic Crown From The Notorious B.I.G.’s Iconic Crown Photoshoot Was Sold at Auction For a Hefty Price
Days before his death, The Notorious B.I.G. did a photo shoot that he didn’t know would become a part of his legacy. For a magazine interview, the “Juicy” rapper was photographed against a red background wearing a plastic crown. Over two decades after his death, the plastic crown was sold for an eye-popping price.
The Notorious B.I.G. did the crown photo shoot days before his death
In early March 1997, Biggie was scheduled for a photo shoot with photographer Barron Claiborne for an interview for Rap Pages magazine. It wasn’t the first time the two worked together: Claiborne had previously shot Biggie wearing a white suit.
For the photo shoot, Claiborne wanted to portray Biggie as the king that he was. Biggie himself claimed the status of King of New York, and Claiborne’s goal was to show him as such.
“I always thought that Biggie looked like a big, Black king,” Claiborne said, according to Justin Tinsley’s 2022 book It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him. “So I was like, ‘I should make him a king.’ And I knew they were gonna think it was stupid. I knew that.”
Sean “Diddy” Combs, who signed Biggie to his fledgling record label Bad Boy Records in 1993, wasn’t a fan of Biggie wearing the crown, saying honestly that the crown made Biggie look like the Burger King mascot.
“Now Puffy’s screaming in the background, ‘Don’t do that s***, n****! You’re gonna look like Burger King!” Claiborne recalled. “This motherf***er.”
For Claiborne, just getting to work with Biggie was a treat — so much so that the money was secondary for him.
“I’m not sure that I even got paid for it,” he told the New York Post in 2020. “I was mostly shooting celebrities and reportage. I did this because I liked taking pictures of Biggie. The time before, I photographed him in a white suit — instead of the tracksuit that most rappers were wearing back in 1997.”
The crown was $6
While the crown appeared impressive in the photos, it wasn’t expensive by any stretch of the imagination: Claiborne bought it at a novelty store for just six dollars.
“This crown is a novelty item,” Claiborne told the New York Post. “I only paid six bucks for it.”
The photo shoot was on March 6, 1997. After the photo shoot, Biggie boarded a flight to Los Angeles for the 1997 Soul Train Music Awards. He would be shot and killed in L.A. shortly after midnight on March 9.
The crown sold at auction in 2020 for $595,000
In 2020, the famous crown from the photoshoot was sold in a first-of-its-kind hip-hop items auction held by Sotheby’s. The crown ultimately sold for $594,750.
“With the tragic events that unfolded just days after the photoshoot, this image of a crowned Notorious B.I.G. became much more than a portrait — the image transformed Biggie Smalls into an aristocratic or saint-like figure, forever immortalized as not only the King of New York but a king of hip-hop music and one of the greatest artists of all time,” Claiborne said in a statement at the time of the auction, according to Rolling Stone. “Without Biggie, the crown would not be worth [six figures].”
“Some people have told me that it’s too low,” he added. “That shows you how strong the symbol really is. I always thought Biggie was a king.”
