FLOAT 100 · Memorabilia · No. 44
Michael Jackson 'Thriller' Jacket
A costume designer who had already dressed Indiana Jones cut a red leather jacket to make a 99-pound, 25-year-old singer look dangerous, and it became the most copied outerwear of the 1980s and, in 2011, a $1.8 million piece of rock history.
- Year
- 1983
- Maker
- Michael Jackson
- By price in memorabilia
- 47 of 100
Create a free account to see every recorded price and every grade.
Create a free account- Worn in
- Michael Jackson's Thriller, the music video released December 2, 1983
- Designer
- Deborah Nadoolman Landis, costume designer of Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Material
- Red and black calf leather
- Look
- Candy-apple red with V-shaped black stripes, unusual front buttons and rigid, raised shoulders
- How many
- One of two jackets Jackson wore in filming; the other, scuffed, was held by the Jackson estate in 2011
- Consigned by
- Dennis Tompkins and Michael Bush, Jackson's longtime costume designers, to whom he had given it
- Buyer
- Milton Verret, a commodities trader from Austin, Texas
- Sold
- $1.8 million at auction, June 26, 2011
- On view
- Lent by the Verret family to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland from May 2022
Who wants a single about monsters?
Thriller, Jackson's sixth album, came out on November 30, 1982, and sat for months at the top of the Billboard 200 on the strength of the Billie Jean and Beat It videos. In June 1983 the Flashdance soundtrack knocked it off; it returned briefly in July before the Police's Synchronicity displaced it. Jackson pressed his label for a plan to get back on top.
The title track had not been planned as a single. The label saw it as a novelty, and one executive asked, 'Who wants a single about monsters?' Jackson's manager, Frank DiLeo, proposed a video. In early August 1983, after seeing An American Werewolf in London, Jackson called its director, John Landis, who wanted to make a theatrical short rather than an ordinary clip.
It was shot on 35mm film with feature-film production values. Accounts of the cost differ: the planned budget is reported as $900,000, while Landis has said the finished video cost $500,000, about ten times an average music video of the time. The label agreed to contribute only $100,000. Showtime agreed to pay half the budget and MTV the rest, and a making-of documentary was produced to help pay for it.
The woman who dressed Indiana Jones
Deborah Nadoolman Landis, born in 1952, earned a master's degree in costume design at UCLA in 1975 and later a doctorate in design history from the Royal College of Art in London. Credited as Deborah Nadoolman, she designed Animal House, The Blues Brothers and Raiders of the Lost Ark, including Indiana Jones's jacket and fedora. She is married to John Landis, and she designed the costumes for Thriller.
She wanted Jackson in hip, casual clothes he could dance in. She chose red to stand out against the night setting and dark palette, and dressed him in red jeans as well to make him look taller. Her stated aim with the jacket was to make Jackson look more 'virile': at the time, she said, the 25-year-old weighed 99 pounds with a 26-inch waist.
The result has V-shaped black stripes, an unusual arrangement of front buttons, and angular, rigid shoulders that jut out over the arms, a silhouette that reads from across a dark street. Rick Baker's makeup turned Jackson into a werecat for the film's opening, and Michael Peters choreographed the zombie dance the jacket is remembered for.
December 1983
Thriller was shot around Los Angeles: the Palace Theatre downtown, a Boyle Heights street corner for the zombie scene, and a Carroll Avenue house in Angeleno Heights for the ending. On November 14, 1983, it was screened privately at the Crest Theater for an audience including Diana Ross, Warren Beatty, Prince and Eddie Murphy, who insisted it be shown twice.
It debuted on MTV with the documentary Making Michael Jackson's Thriller on December 2, 1983. MTV recorded audiences ten times its norm. The documentary sold a million VHS copies within months, more than any prior video release, and the album's sales doubled. Thriller became the best-selling album in history.
The jacket became what one reference calls the hottest outerwear fad of the mid-1980s. Counterfeits sold for more than $500, and in 1984 Jackson sued in New York to stop unauthorized copies of the jacket and his other merchandise. Not everyone was won over: Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave the video a thumbs down.
From the wardrobe to Austin
Two jackets were worn in filming. Jackson gave this one to Dennis Tompkins and Michael Bush, his longtime costume designers, and they consigned it to auction two years after his death. The other, in scuffed condition, was held by the Jackson estate at the time of the sale. A later museum account describes the one now on display as one of at least two used in the production.
On Sunday, June 26, 2011, the jacket sold for $1.8 million to Milton Verret, an Austin commodities trader who had earlier donated eight 'Big Guitar' sculptures to his city. He called it the most important piece of rock memorabilia in history and said he would show it at Dell Children's Medical Center in Austin before touring it for children's charities. A portion of the price went to the Shambala Preserve, the big-cat sanctuary caring for tigers Jackson had owned.
Verret said he thought the price fair. 'We actually owned the jacket at $1.3 million,' he told reporters. 'He stopped, and reopened it up, so I'm fine with that.' In May 2022 the Verret family lent it to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, where it arrived under high security for a stay of at least a year.
Copies, tributes and a burned jacket
Because the jacket was copied so widely, the word 'Thriller jacket' covers many objects. The 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland ends with Wade Robson burning a Thriller-style jacket. The director said it was genuine; Robson said it was custom-made for his childhood performances. Separately, a Thriller jacket Robson sold in 2011 brought $49,920, according to the auctioneer. Neither is the jacket in Cleveland.
The designer Zaldy made a redesigned version for Jackson's canceled This Is It concerts, with imitation blood on the shoulders and a stamp of the video's cat creature inside. The 25th-anniversary reissue of the album used a still of Jackson in the red jacket among the zombies.
The film itself has its own honors. In 2009 it became the first music video selected for the National Film Registry. At the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards it won Viewer's Choice, Best Overall Performance and Best Choreography. The album has spent 522 weeks on the Billboard 200, 37 of them at No. 1.
The numbers
- Video premiere
- December 2, 1983, on MTV
- 1984 MTV Video Music Awards
- 3 wins: Viewer's Choice, Best Overall Performance, Best Choreography
- Making-of documentary
- 1 million VHS copies sold within months
- Album weeks on Billboard 200
- 522, including 37 at No. 1 (as of 2022)
- National Film Registry
- Selected 2009, the first music video chosen
Timeline
Michael Jackson is born in Gary, Indiana.
Deborah Nadoolman designs Indiana Jones's jacket and fedora for Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The album Thriller is released.
Thriller is knocked off the top of the Billboard 200 by the Flashdance soundtrack.
Jackson asks John Landis to direct a video for the title track.
The finished film is screened privately at the Crest Theater in Los Angeles.
Michael Jackson's Thriller debuts on MTV with the making-of documentary.
Jackson sues in New York to stop counterfeit copies of the jacket; the video wins three MTV Video Music Awards.
Michael Jackson dies in Los Angeles, aged 50.
Thriller becomes the first music video chosen for the National Film Registry.
The jacket sells at auction for $1.8 million to Milton Verret of Austin, Texas.
Leaving Neverland ends with Wade Robson burning a Thriller-style jacket.
The Verret family lends the jacket to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
A 40th-anniversary reissue of Thriller is released.
The world in 1983
The ARPANET completes its move to TCP/IP, often counted as the start of the modern internet.
The final episode of M*A*S*H airs on CBS to 121.6 million viewers.
President Reagan proposes the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Pioneer 10 passes Neptune's orbit, and the Motorola DynaTAC mobile phone goes on sale.
Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space aboard Challenger.
A Soviet fighter shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, killing all 269 aboard.
Truck bombs destroy the U.S. Marine and French barracks in Beirut.
U.S. troops invade Grenada.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 26, 2011 | $1,800,000 | Sold at auctionSold at auction to Austin collector Milton Verret; consigned by Jackson's costume designers Dennis Tompkins and Michael Bush. |
A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.
By reference price, Michael Jackson 'Thriller' Jacket is number 47 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (44 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- The same designer made Indiana Jones's leather jacket and fedora.
- Jackson weighed 99 pounds with a 26-inch waist when the jacket was made, according to its designer.
- Jackson, then a Jehovah's Witness, ordered the film's negatives destroyed; his lawyer saved them and added an on-screen disclaimer instead.
- Makeup artist Rick Baker made Jackson a werecat because he did not want to create another werewolf.
- To qualify the video for the Academy Awards, Landis had it played before screenings of Fantasia in a Los Angeles theater. It was not nominated.
- Fake Thriller jackets sold for more than $500 in the mid-1980s, enough to prompt a lawsuit.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 1, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026