Celebrities are a rare breed - they are often eccentric and odd, known for their loveable quirks and fascinations, but with the deep pockets of multi-millionaires. This combination makes for some truly strange purchases. You hear stories about celebrities dropping huge sums of money on stuff like champagne, cars, jewellery etc. but those sorts of purchases are to be expected of the wealthy.

These following purchases, on the other hand, are anything but ordinary. Whereas the average person could never afford the following four items - unless you make your lottery dreams come true overnight - for celebrities, these oddball purchases are all part of daily life. Here are five of the most outrageous celebrity purchases, ranked in order of ridiculousness.

4. Bono Buys a Plane Ticket for His Hat

As the story goes, U2 was set to play a gig in Italy, when Bono realized that he had forgotten his hat all the way back in the UK. Rather than go onstage without it, or simply buy another one, the rock star arranged for his hat to be flown - first class, allegedly - to him, costing him a total of $1,700. That's a high price to pay for a bit of headwear, but then again, if you've ever been caught hat-less on a blustery day, you might sympathize.

3. Mike Tyson Nabs Three Bengal Tigers

If you've seen The Hangover, you are no doubt already familiar with the fact that Mike Tyson, the one-time heavyweight champion of the world, owns Bengal tigers. According to an interview the boxer gave to Joe Rogan, he purchased them whilst still in jail, spending roughly $70,000 on the big cats, and a subsequent $4,000/month to take care of them. You thought the Fancy Feast you buy your cat is expensive?  

2. Lady Gaga Pays a Scary Amount for Ghost Detection

The popular pop diva might be best known now for her affecting turn in A Star Is Born, but her career as a performer has been long and filled with eccentricities. Case in point: that one time Gaga, convinced she was being haunted, paid around $50,000 for a ghost detection kit. Unfortunately, no info exists as to whether or not the pop star actually detected any ghosts, or whether the Electro Magnetic Field Ghost Detector was ultimately a very expensive piece of art.

1. Nicholas Cage Spends a Fortune on a Dinosaur Skull

He hunts down lost treasure in his National Treasure movies, but did you know that the real-life Nicholas Cage also has a penchant for valuable rarities. The oddball actor spent a whopping $276,000 on a dinosaur skull that he subsequently had to return to the Mongolian government, after a lawsuit determined the skull had been illegally smuggled out of Mongolia. It's a yarn that seems ripped right from the synopsis of a Nick Cage movie, but it's all real.

If you won the lottery, what would you spend your fortune on? Ghost detectors, dino skulls, tigers and hats, or would you settle for a nice beach house somewhere on the French Riviera? If you're anything like these four celebrities, you're probably thinking: why not both?