A rare “Pink Star” diamond is now the world’s most expensive gem ever — selling for a record $71.2 million at auction on Tuesday.

The stunning 59.60-carat diamond was sold to jewelry retailer Chow Tai Fook, who phoned in his bid to Sotheby’s in Hong Kong, the Telegraph reported.

He plunked down 553 million Hong Kong dollars for the jewel, a price that included the buyer’s premium.

The 14.6-carat Oppenheimer Blue diamond was previously the world’s most expensive gem after selling for $57.5 million last May at Christie’s in Geneva.

The “Pink Star” was cut from a 132.5-carat rough diamond which was mined by De Beers in 1999 in Africa.

It took two years to polish and shape the stone into a pristine oval, rated internally flawless.

The giant pink rock had been sold before, netting a record $83 million at Sotheby’s Geneva in 2013 — but that buyer defaulted on his payment and the stone.

Tuesday’s auction also broke the previous world auction record for a pink diamond. A 24.78-carat Graff Pink sold for $46.2 million at Sotheby’s Geneva in 2010.

Pink diamonds get their color from a process called plastic deformation, which creates defects in the diamond’s atomic structure by rearranging the carbon atoms and altering the way light is absorbed and reflected.