Highlights
- John Oliver revealed on Last Week Tonight that his show bought back Russell Crowe’s Cinderella Man jockstrap.
- The undergarment sold for $10,000 at an August auction, and Oliver’s team turned out to be the mystery buyer.
- The strap first went to an Alaska Blockbuster in 2018 and later raised $21,000 for public media at auction.
Russell Crowe‘s jockstrap has come home. Again.
John Oliver revealed on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight that he once more owns the jockstrap Crowe wore in Cinderella Man, marking the third time the undergarment has landed in his hands.
The confession came during a segment on the Secret Service. Oliver predicted his show’s legacy would be food bank money, a koala chlamydia ward and “whatever the f**k is going on with Russell Crowe’s jockstrap right now.”
Then came the punchline. After the show auctioned it off for public media, the strap resurfaced at another auction in August and sold for $10,000. The buyer? Oliver’s own team. “Of course we f***ing bought it back. Of course, we did.”
Rewind to 2018. Oliver paid $7,000 for it at Crowe’s “Art of the Divorce” sale, where the actor unloaded more than 200 items after splitting from Danielle Spencer.
John Oliver reunited with Russell Crowe’s jockstrap on Sunday night’s ‘Last Week Tonight.’ Oliver has now auctioned off the undergarment twice—and somehow wound up with it again. https://t.co/w1GTinSjHY
— LateNighter (@latenightercom) October 5, 2026Crowe’s sales pitch was impossible to top. “It was my jock strap when I won the heavyweight championship of the world,” he said.
Last Week Tonight then gifted it to the last Blockbuster in Anchorage, Alaska, to help drum up business. Crowe sent his proceeds to the Australia Zoo, which put the cash toward the “John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward.”
Truly, the circle of life.
When that Blockbuster closed, the strap boomeranged back to Oliver, who reunited it with Crowe on air. In 2025, the show auctioned it for public TV and radio, and an anonymous bidder paid $21,000.
This summer it popped up at Propstore, mounted on a plastic display bust autographed by Oliver himself.
The math: 7,000 in, 21,000 out for charity, $10,000 back in. Nobody said comedy was cheap.
Oliver closed by speaking directly to the garment: “I cannot wait to find out where you’re gonna go next.”
Crowe has yet to comment.
