Russell Crowe bought a dinosaur skull from Leonardo DiCaprio when he was drunk.
The 55-year-old actor – who has sons Charles, 15, and Tennyson,12, with ex-wife Danielle Spencer – was hanging out with his ‘Body of Lies’ co-star when he agreed to pay $35,000 for the Mosasaur fossil because his pal was keen to get rid of it in order to buy a new one.
Russell said: "I bought it for my kids, and you know, cut myself a little bit of slack here, there was a bunch of vodka involved in the transaction and it happened at Leonardo’s house…
"I think he started the conversation, he’s like, ‘I got this one, but there’s another one coming on the market that I really want so I’m trying to sell this one’ and I said, ‘Well, I’ll buy it’ I said ‘How much you want for it?’ He was pretty cool about it, he said, ‘Just give me what I paid for it,’ and I think he paid 30, 35 grand for it."
The Mosasaur skull was among the items sold by Sotheby’s Australia in 2018 for Russell’s ‘Art of Divorce’ sale, and the ‘Gladiator’ actor admitted it’s worth much more now.
He said: "I think it’s almost doubled in value since I sold it."
When DJ Howard Stern said he thought it would have been worth more, his guest quipped: "It was not a very popular dinosaur.
"Part of the reason for buying it, is that when I did buy it around 2008, 2009, my kids, particularly my oldest were fascinated, into dinosaurs, so I said, ‘Here you go, here’s one for the playroom.’ "