Buyer returns Grease jacket to Olivia Newton-John after auction

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Olivia Newton-John next to her jacket before the auction

The leather jacket Olivia Newton-John wore in Grease has been given back to the actor by the man who bought it from her at auction for $243,200 (£185,000).

The Australian sold the black jacket and other possessions in November, with part of the proceeds going to her cancer research centre.

But the anonymous buyer has now handed it back to a “grateful” Newton-John.

He said: “It should not sit in a billionaire’s closet for country-club bragging rights.”

The buyer was seen with his face blurred out in a video as he surprised the actor with the jacket.

He said: “The odds of beating a recurring cancer using the newest emerging therapies is a thousandfold greater than someone appearing out of the blue, buying your most famous and cherished icon, and returning it to you.”

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Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta in Grease

A tearful Newton-John, 71, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, hugged him and said: “That is the most incredibly generous thing to do for me. I’m so grateful and I’m just blown away.”

She wore the jacket in the final scene of the 1978 film, when she and John Travolta perform You’re the One That I Want and We Go Together.

It was among the star lots in last month’s auction, which raised a total of $2.4m (£1.8m).

Newton-John has recently been having treatment for stage-four breast cancer. She set up the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre near Melbourne in 2012.

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Media captionOlivia Newton-John: “I’m not going to be a victim”

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