(Reuters) - Madonna attempted on Tuesday to stop an upcoming auction of a prison break-up letter from rapper Tupac Shakur and a note in which she called singer Whitney Houston and actress Sharon Stone “horribly mediocre.” 
 
 The “Rebel Heart” singer filed a request in New York Supreme Court for a temporary restraining order against New York auction house Gotta Have It Collectibles to halt the sale, due to start on Wednesday. 
 
 Madonna said in court documents that she was not aware until reading press reports that many of the items listed for auction, including the letter from her former boyfriend Shakur, were no longer in her possession. 
 
 The items were consigned to auction by Darlene Lutz, whom Madonna described in court documents as a former friend and art consultant and said she had “betrayed my trust in an outrageous effort to obtain my possessions without my knowledge or consent.” 
 
 A representative for the auction house and Lutz said in an emailed statement that Madonna’s effort to stop the sale was “a completely baseless and meritless action,” and they would challenge her claims in court. 
 
 “We believe that her intent is nothing more than to besmirch the good reputations of the auction house and Ms Lutz,” the statement said. 
 
 In a letter dated January 1995 and written to Madonna by Shakur while he was in prison for sexual assault, the rapper said he ended their romance because he felt that dating a white woman could jeopardize his career. 
 
 “I felt due to my ‘image’ I would be letting down half of the people who made me what I thought I was. I never meant to hurt you,” he said. Shakur was killed at age 25 in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996. 
 
 Also among the 20 items Madonna is seeking to remove from sale are a pair of her panties, an old checkbook, a hairbrush and personal photos. 
 
 In another letter from the early 1990s, Madonna voiced her frustration at not having a music career like Houston or film career like Stone. 
 
 FILE PHOTO: Singer Madonna arrives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Gala, Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between in New York City, U.S. on May 1, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo 
 
 “Not because I want to be these women - because I’d rather die, but they’re so horribly mediocre and they’re always being held up as paragons of virtue (or) some sort of measuring stick to humiliate me,” she said in the letter. 
 
 Houston drowned in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub in 2012. 
 
 Stone said in a Facebook post last week that she is friends with Madonna, adding: “I love and adore you; won’t be pitted against you by any invasion of our personal journeys.” 

 An auction of several of Madonna's personal items has been halted by a Manhattan judge after the legendary singer took out an emergency court order earlier this week claiming that the items were stolen from her by a former associate. 
 
 According to Madonna and her lawyers, items that were being auctioned by the website gottahaverockandroll.com were secretly taken from her home by a former friend, art consultant Darlene Lutz, who Madonna claimed was a "frequent overnight guest" in her New York residence. 

 (NEW YORK) — An impending auction of pop star Madonna's personal items, including a love letter from her ex-boyfriend the late rapper Tupac Shakur, a pair of previously worn panties and a hairbrush containing her hair, was halted by a judge on Tuesday. 
 
 Manhattan state Supreme Court Judge Gerald Leibovitz ordered Gotta Have It! Collectibles to pull 22 items from its rock-and-roll-themed auction scheduled for Wednesday. 
 
 The Material Girl had earlier sought an emergency court order saying she was "shocked to learn" of the planned online auction of the Tupac letter and had no idea it was no longer in her possession. 
 
 "The fact that I have attained celebrity status as a result of success in my career does not obviate my right to maintain my privacy, including with regard to highly personal items," Madonna said in court papers. "I understand that my DNA could be extracted from a piece of my hair. It is outrageous and grossly offensive that my DNA could be auctioned for sale to the general public." 
 
 Court papers said the Tupac letter was expected to fetch up to $400,000. Tupac, one of the best-selling rappers of all time, dated Madonna in the early 1990s and died of injuries suffered in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting in 1996. 
 
 Madonna, behind such hit songs as "Like a Virgin" and "Vogue," has sold hundreds of millions of albums. Other Madonna items scheduled to be auctioned were private photographs taken at a bachelorette party at her Miami home, personal letters and cassette tapes of unreleased recordings. 
 
 Madonna's court papers name Darlene Lutz, a former friend, art consultant and "frequent overnight guest" in Madonna's home when she was "not in residence," as behind the sale of the property. 
 
 A spokesman for Lutz and the auction house said the allegations will be "vigorously challenged and refuted" in court. 
 
 "Madonna and her legal army have taken what we believe to be completely baseless and meritless action to temporarily halt the sale of Ms. Lutz's legal property," spokesman Pete Siegel told the New York Post. "We are confident that the Madonna memorabilia will be back."
– Most people would consider love letters, hairbrushes, and underwear to be "highly personal items"—and a New York state Supreme Court judge agreed that, in Madonna's case, those items shouldn't be put up for auction, the AP reports. On Tuesday, the pop star received the emergency court order she was seeking that stops (for now) auction house Gotta Have It! Collectibles from hawking 22 former material possessions of the Material Girl, including said brush (complete with strands of hair), panties she once wore, and a love note from rapper Tupac Shakur, whom she used to date. In court papers, Madonna noted she'd been "shocked to learn" the Tupac letter, which some anticipated would sell for up to $400,000, had been removed from her home (she fingers former friend Darlene Lutz, who used to stay at her house often, as the one who swiped her personal effects). Madonna also mentioned that by putting her hairbrush up for grabs, the auction house was also selling her DNA, a move she called "outrageous" and "grossly offensive." Also pulled from the "for sale" pile: vacation pictures, checkbooks, cassette tapes with never-before-released recordings, and a letter in which Madonna railed against Whitney Houston and Sharon Stone, calling them "horribly mediocre," per the Telegraph and Reuters. A rep for the auction house and Lutz says in an emailed statement that Madonna's claims are "baseless" and that they'll be fighting to reschedule the sale, which had originally been set for Wednesday.