Steve Irwin's eerie final speech as fans mourn 16 years since his tragic death

dailystar.co.uk:

Steve Irwin’s close pal John Stainton has admitted the beloved crocodile hunter made "very, very weird" speech before he died as fans mourn 16 years since his tragic death.The famed animal lover and conservationist died aged 44 after a stingray's barb pierced his chest as he was diving off the coast of Australia while filming an underwater documentary film called Ocean's Deadliest.Appearing on the I’ve Got News For You podcast, Irwin’s friend and The Crocodile Hunter producer John, opened up about filming the documentary where he witnessed the death of his close friend.READ NEXT: Steve Irwin's son in terrifying encounter with crocodile who lunges at him baring teethAppearing on Australian podcast I've Got News For You, John explained that a couple days before the documentary began filming, Steve made a speech to the crew, and according to John "it was really weird."“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 deadliest movie.

And it was really weird,” he said.“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 said.John also remarked that he has a weird feeling about the shoot that day and even tried to prevent the shoot from happening, but was refused by The Discovery Channel since everyone had already been paid.He said: "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."John also revealed that he’d had a “premonition” of his own death ahead of the trip — inspiring him to write a living will and undergo multiple medical.