Michael Jackson's fans will remember the departed pop star through his music for years to come. Now, a Chicago diamond company plans to make another part of the musician last forever -- his hair.
Michael Jackson has been a legend since childhood. Check out pictures of his star-studded, and sometimes troubled, life.
During the filming of the infamous Pepsi commercial in 1984, Michael Jackson suffered second-degree burns to his scalp after pyrotechnics accidentally set his hair on fire.
Executive producer Ralph Cohen threw his jacket over Jackson's head to help extinguish the flames. When Jackson was rushed to the hospital, Cohen scooped up the charred hair Jackson lost, which is currently being preserved by John Reznikoff, president of the University Archives.
"The provenance and authenticity of this lock of hair is impeccable, including the highly publicized video showing the original owner of the hair using his Armani jacket to extinguish Jackson's hair," said John Reznikoff in a press release. "This jacket was included with the purchase of the hair."
Now, 25 years later, some of those hairs will be given to Chicago-based LifeGem to create a small number of certified, high-quality diamonds. That's right -- the King of Pop is going to be turned into diamonds. Founder Dean VandenBiesen explained that carbon will be extracted from MJ's hair and turned into crystals, which can then be refined into diamonds.
"LifeGem specializes in creating diamonds from locks of hair. Our plan is to give people an opportunity to own a diamond made from Michael Jackson's DNA," said VandenBiesen. "We are currently evaluating the hair sample to determine how many diamonds can be created. This will be a limited collection and we anticipate great interest."
The process isn't a new one. In 2007, LifeGem and Reznikoff collaborated to create diamonds from the hair of another musician: Ludwig van Beethoven.
LIfeGem has yet to decide on a price for the King of Pop's diamonds, but Beethoven's went for $240,000 apiece.
If you do get your hands on an MJ diamond, he'd really be able to "Rock With You" all night ... and all day ... and all night.
