Culture
John Oliver Raised $3 Million For Charity Then Spent It On Russell Crowe's Jockstrap
By Bruno Von Falken, . BSN Network. Satire.
NEW YORK, NY, John Oliver, host of HBO's Last Week Tonight and a man who has at various points purchased a debt portfolio, a coal mine, and a portrait of a squirrel dressed as Napoleon, has added to his collection of deeply intentional purchases by reacquiring the jockstrap worn by Russell Crowe in the 2005 boxing film Cinderella Man.
The item had been donated to the last remaining Blockbuster Video in the continental United States, located in Bend, Oregon, where it was displayed in the memorabilia section alongside a signed headshot of a local weatherman and what staff described only as "Ron's stuff."
Oliver confirmed the purchase on air with the announcement "We fucking bought it back," a sentence that raises more questions than it answers, beginning with the word "back" and ending with the word "we."
The jockstrap originally entered Oliver's orbit during a 2019 segment in which Crowe, going through what his publicist called "a transitional period" and what everyone else called "a divorce," auctioned off a collection of personal items under the title The Art of Divorce. Oliver purchased the jockstrap at auction for approximately $7,000, a price that seemed insane at the time and has aged, if anything, worse.
He then donated it to the Blockbuster, because the bit demanded it, because the Blockbuster deserved it, or because HBO's legal team was on vacation. The store accepted.
For two years, the jockstrap occupied a place of honor between a cardboard standee of Shrek and the store's last surviving copy of Anger Management, a Nicholson film whose presence there felt appropriate in a way nobody could articulate. Blockbuster staff reportedly referred to it as "the Crowe" and pointed it out on tours.
"It gave the place something," said assistant manager Deidre Foltz, 34, who has worked at the Bend Blockbuster since 2017 and describes her career trajectory as "intentional." "People would come in and ask about it. More than they asked about movies, honestly. More than they asked about anything."
Oliver's team declined to specify what was paid to retrieve the garment, describing the transaction as "a private matter between consenting institutions," which is a sentence that a spokesperson actually said into a telephone.
Crowe, for his part, issued a statement through his publicist reading: "Russell is aware of the situation and considers it resolved," which is the kind of statement a man issues when he has been asked twice and has decided that answering is beneath him but ignoring it is also beneath him and this is the exact middle distance.
The reacquired jockstrap is now reportedly being held in the Last Week Tonight offices, in what a production source described as "a very normal filing cabinet" in a room that used to be used for research.
Oliver has not announced what comes next for the garment, though a senior HBO executive, reached for comment, said only that they were "supportive of John's vision" and then asked to be quoted as unnamed.
The Bend Blockbuster has already replaced it in the display case with a signed menu from an Applebee's that closed in 2009.
They did not say whose it was. They said it was better that way.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/john-oliver-russell-crowe-jock-strap-last-week-tonight-1235636701/