An eerie 'farewell' speech given by Steve Irwin weeks before his death has haunted his best friend for 15 years.
Irwin, known professionally as The Crocodile Hunter, died on September 4 2006 at the age of 44 after he was pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming a sea animal documentary called Ocean's Deadliest in Queensland.
John Stainton, Irwin's close friend and the producer behind The Crocodile Hunter TV show, was part of the production team and witnessed Irwin's horrific death first hand.
'It was like a 'finale' speech. Very weird': Steve Irwin's (right) best friend, TV producer John Stainton (left), has recalled the late Crocodile Hunter's eerie 'farewell' speech to his crew weeks before his death
'A couple of days before we started the show, he made a little speech to all the crew that were up there catching crocs for his research trip - which I joined at the end with our crew to do the [Ocean's Deadliest] movie,' he recalled during an interview with I've Got News For You podcast this week.
'And it was really weird. He was sort of thanking them all for being who they were and for helping him. It was like a 'finale' speech. Very weird,' Stainton added.
'I had this idea on arriving that something was wrong, but it's just life, you never know what things are going to do to you,' he added.
Tragic: Irwin, known professionally as The Crocodile Hunter, died on September 4 2006 at the age of 44 after he was pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming a sea animal documentary called Ocean's Deadliest in Queensland
'I had this idea on arriving that something was wrong': Stainton witnessed Irwin's horrific death first hand, and told the Have I Got News For You podcast this week that he 'had a bad feeling' about filming the Ocean's Deadliest documentary in Queensland. Pictured in 2006
Elsewhere in the podcast, Stainton admitted he never wanted to film the Ocean's Deadliest documentary in the first place.
Stainton claimed he'd experienced a 'premonition' that he would die during the trip, and even tried to convince Irwin's
