John Oliver Buys Russell Crowe's Jockstrap for a Third Time
John Oliver owns Russell Crowe’s jockstrap again. The host of Last Week Tonight, his HBO show, revealed that his team had bought it back for $10,000 during a story about the Secret Service. It is the third time Oliver has taken ownership of the garment, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The item is the leather jockstrap worn by Crowe as boxer James J. Braddock in the 2005 film Cinderella Man. A jockstrap is a protective undergarment worn for sport, and this one is made of leather. It is the piece worn on screen, not a copy, as described by The Guardian.
Oliver first bought it for $7,000 at Crowe’s ‘The Art of Divorce’ auction, the sale where the actor cleared out personal memorabilia. He did not keep it on a shelf at home. He donated it to the Blockbuster Video store in Anchorage, Alaska, one of the last outlets of the rental chain where customers once hired tapes and discs to watch at home.
That Anchorage store displayed the jockstrap as a local attraction. It closed in summer 2018. The garment then returned to Oliver toward the end of 2018, closing the first loop in a story that has now run for eight years.
The second loop started in 2025. Staff on Last Week Tonight organised an auction of the jockstrap to raise funds for public television and radio stations. An anonymous buyer paid $21,000 for it, triple the price Oliver had first paid. In August, the jockstrap was auctioned again and the Last Week Tonight team bought it back for $10,000, less than half the 2025 price.
Crowe had set the tone for the saga at the start. He donated profits from his original auction to the Australia Zoo. The zoo said the money would fund the ‘John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward’, named in the comedian’s honour.
What makes this stand out is the persistence. Most television props change hands once and disappear into a collection. This one keeps circling back to the same owner. For viewers, that means the joke has a physical address, and for now that address is back with Last Week Tonight.
