Iconic Star Wars Costume Sold At Auction

If you are not already familiar with Heritage Auctions, they sell a number of items each year, including large amounts of pop culture memorabilia. At the same time that they were selling the golden slave Leia bikini, they also sold one of Daniel Radcliffe’s wands from Harry Potter and the Prison of Azkaban for $52,000.

One of Macauley Culkin’s outfits from the first Home Alone movie was sold for $47,500, and one of Thor’s hammers from the MCU was sold for $81,000 (some would say that’s a small price to own something once held by Chris Hemsworth).

While every Star Wars fan has the image of Carrie Fisher in the slave Leia bikini burned into their brains, few in the fandom know exactly how she felt about wearing it. But thanks to an interview the actor gave to NPR about a month before her death, we know much more about how weird she found the whole thing.

With characteristic bluntness, she said that when George Lucas showed the golden outfit to her, “I thought he was kidding and it made me very nervous.”

In that same interview, she also expounded upon how the slave Leia outfit was just as uncomfortable for her physically as it was mentally.

“I had to sit very straight because I couldn’t have lines on my sides, like little creases,” she said. “No creases were allowed, so I had to sit very, very rigid straight.”

For a talented actor like Fisher, this effectively added insult to injury: she soon realized that while the other actors were off shooting lots of cool scenes, “I have to stay with the slug with the big tongue!”

Some of her annoyance came out in the form of an ad-libbed line that she felt should have made it into the movie. 

After a scene in which Jabba spoke to both Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, they walked away without greeting her character, prompting Fisher to exclaim “Don’t worry about me…I’ll be fine! Seriously!”

Needless to say, Fisher hated wearing the slave Leia bikini, and she sarcastically noted that being “nearly naked” was “not a style choice for me.” However, this uncomfortable tale has a happy ending because all of the acclaimed actor’s misery over this costume meant that finally getting to kill Jabba the Hutt was a very cathartic moment.

Describing killing her captor as “so enjoyable,” Fisher admitted “I really relished that because I hated wearing that outfit and sitting there rigid straight, and I couldn’t wait to kill him.”

Now you know why Fisher looked so passionate while choking the life out of Jabba the Hutt: she wasn’t simply using her legendary acting skills—she was also channeling all of her anger at the slave Leia bikini into murdering a puppet.

Now, one lucky Star Wars fan gets to be part of this moment forever because they are the proud owner of franchise history. And if this deep-pocketed fan wants to wear the outfit around the house hoping that they, too, can someday seduce Harrison Ford—well, who are we to judge?

Source: NPR