The long journey of John Oliver and Russell Crowe’s jockstrap is somehow still not over.
Years after Last Week Tonight threw down an absurd amount of money for the jockstrap Crowe wore in the 2005 film Cinderella Man, only to give it away twice, the item is set to change hands again. The unlikely piece of memorabilia is up for grabs as part of Propstore’s Summer 2026 Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction, and it’s expected to fetch far more than Oliver’s show originally invested in it.
The jockstrap, worn underneath Crowe’s shorts during the movie’s climactic fight sequence, never exactly got the spotlight in Cinderella Man. But thanks to an unlikely journey through late-night TV, the wardrobe piece has become something more akin to Cinderella’s slipper: a prized item searching for its rightful owner.
To date, that chain of possession has gone as follows:
Crowe saved the jockstrap after production wrapped on Cinderella Man in 2005. But in 2018, more than 200 of his possessions went under the gavel in an auction he dubbed “The Art of Divorce,” following his split from his wife.
Initially estimated to fetch $500–$600, the $7,000 winning bid raised eyebrows—but not as much as the buyer’s identity did: John Oliver. Oliver announced that his show had purchased the jockstrap, along with several other items from Crowe’s collection, and donated them to the last-standing Blockbuster Video store in Alaska. (For his part, Crowe donated the proceeds from Oliver’s purchases to the Australia Zoo.)
But while Crowe’s memorabilia drove attention to the Anchorage Blockbuster, the video store closed just months later. Most of the items made their way to the country’s true last Blockbuster in Oregon, but Oliver secretly swooped in to recover the jockstrap. That November, it returned to Last Week Tonight in a pre-taped sketch that reunited the undergarment with its original owner, Russell Crowe.
After seven more years in Last Week Tonight’s possession, Oliver closed out the show’s twelfth season last November by launching a massive charity auction of its memorabilia to support public media.
The jockstrap fetched three times what Oliver had paid for it: $21,000. An anonymous Reddit user claimed to be the winner, admitting, “This is going to be a tough one to explain to my wife.”
And now the traveling jockstrap waits in the purgatory of Propstore, which notes that it was “purchased from [Oliver’s] auction.”
The jockstrap even comes mounted on a plastic display bust signed at the top by Oliver himself.
Bidding starts at $5,000, but Propstore estimates that the jockstrap will sell for between $10,000 and $20,000. The next chapter in its journey will be decided when the auction ends on Wednesday, August 26.
