It Turns Out Phoebe Bridgers Smashing Her Guitar Wasn't Wasteful After All

When Phoebe Bridgers smashed her Danelectro Dano ’56 at the end of her performance on Saturday Night Live back in February, it set off a firestorm of criticism online. One of the many arguments made against the musician’s decision to smash her guitar was that it was wasteful. That’s typically a fair point, but not, it turns out, in this case: what remains of Bridgers’s guitar has just sold at a GLAAD auction for a whopping $101,500.

That is, of course, roughly 200 times the price of a Dano ’56 — and it’s all going to a good cause.

“Phoebe Bridgers’ unforgettable SNL guitar smash has now gone from a much-buzzed-about performance and morphed into an important moment of giving back to the LGBTQ community,” Anthony Ramos, GLAAD’s head of talent, said in a statement to Billboard. “Phoebe is such a visible, out powerhouse in the music industry and we knew that the item was special, but we were so pleasantly surprised to see such a large amount of money raised that will go directly into our work to support and uplift LGBTQ people. Thank you, Phoebe!”

It’s unclear who purchased the smashed guitar, but as Ramos told Variety, “Obviously it’s someone who’s either a huge Phoebe Bridgers fan or someone who is really into broken guitars or someone who really wants to help us accelerate our work for the LGBTQ community, and hopefully it’s someone who checks all three of those boxes.”

Bridgers, who identifies as bisexual, was nominated for Outstanding Breakthrough Music Artist at Thursday’s GLAAD Music Awards, but that award ultimately went to rapper Chika.

We’re still awaiting comment from noted curmudgeon David Crosby, who took to Twitter to call Bridgers’s performance “pathetic” earlier this year. She in term called him a “little bitch.” It was unclear at press time how much money David Crosby has raised for GLAAD this year, but we suspect it’s less than $101,500.