{"id":621198,"date":"2026-10-05T11:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T11:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/621198\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T11:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T11:12:08","slug":"john-oliver-buys-russell-crowes-jock-strap-for-a-third-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/621198\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver Buys Russell Crowe’s Jock Strap for a Third Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tRussell Crowe<\/a>\u2018s jock strap is back in John Oliver\u2019s possession once again.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis marks the third time the Last Week Tonight host has taken ownership of the undergarment that Crowe wore in 2005\u2019s Cinderella Man.<\/p>\n

\n\tHere\u2019s the backstory: In 1028, Oliver bought the item at an auction Crowe called \u201cThe Art of the Divorce.\u201d He put up more than 200 items for sale in the wake of his divorce from Danielle Spencer.<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing the auction, Crowe told Good Morning Britain that the jock strap turned out to be \u201cone of the most popular items\u201d leading up to the event.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was my jock strap when I won the heavyweight championship of the world as the character James J. Braddock in the film Cinderella Man,\u201d he said. \u201cI put it in the collection as a piece of whimsy and a bit of a gag. Funny enough, it\u2019s garnered a lot of attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, it also drew the attention of Last Week Tonight, which purchased it for $7,000 (in addition to some other items). Oliver and his staff then donated<\/a> it to the last remaining Blockbuster Video store in Anchorage, Alaska, to help boost their business. The store put it on display but then closed in the summer of 2018.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Crowe said he donated the profits to the Australia Zoo, which said it would use the money to fund the \u201cJohn Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the Anchorage Blockbuster closed, the jockstrap found its way back to Oliver toward the end of 2018. Crowe even appeared in a sketch with the item.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast Week Tonight staffers then put it up auction again in 2025 to help raise funds for public TV and radio stations, with the item fetching $21,000 from an anonymous buyer.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt found its way back to auction again in August of this year, and the jock strap was purchased by an unknown buyer for $10,000 at yet another auction. It turns out that buyer was the Last Week Tonight team.<\/p>\n

\n\tOliver revealed this news on Sunday\u2019s Last Week Tonight during a story on the Secret Service. Oliver explained the agency\u2019s \u201czero fail\u201d mission and compared that to his own show\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf [they] fail, it can change the course of history, a level of pressure I truly cannot fathom,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty confident the historical legacy of this show will be a few hundred thousand dollars for food banks, a koala chlamydia ward, and whatever the fuck is going on with Russell Crowe\u2019s jockstrap right now.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBecause, quick update: After we auctioned the jockstrap off at the end of last year, in aid of public media, it was apparently put up for auction again in August, where, I\u2019m happy to tell you: It sold for $10,000. And the reason I know that is, of course we fucking bought it back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe brought out the undergarment and then addressed it directly: \u201cI cannot wait to find out where you\u2019re gonna go next.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russell Crowe\u2018s jock strap is back in John Oliver\u2019s possession once again. This marks the third time the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,159396,140012,111,139,69,1380],"class_list":["post-621198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-john-oliiver","tag-last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-russell-crowe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}