Speaking from experience, it’s easy to underestimate Steve-O. That the man who has spent decades performing death-defying, nauseating and hysterical stunts as part of Jackass could possess palpable emotional insight and unique philosophies about the world around him seems as improbable as the wild successes of the franchise itself.
It’s an oddly satisfying reminder to never judge a book by its cover.
Aside from Jackass and his solo outings, Steve-O hosts a podcast (Wild Ride! with Steve-O) and in 2011 released his New York Times best-selling memoir, Professional Idiot.
Last year he published a second book – A Hard Kick in the Nuts: What I’ve Learned from a Lifetime of Terrible Decisions – and he’s even stuck his name on his own hot sauce brand, flogging bottles with matching flushable wipes that he calls the ‘Butthole Bundle’…
It’s around midnight in California, and Steve-O has joined us via Zoom for a chat about the upcoming UK dates on the latest leg of his Bucket List Tour. This is his first UK tour in seven years, and the first that he’s billing as a ‘multimedia comedy show’, filled with stories and extreme filmed stunts that he says even Jackass won’t touch with a barge pole.
‘I taped a bunch of forbidden s**t that I call my Bucket List. Really illegal, over-the-line stuff that we wouldn’t have been allowed to do for Jackass,’ Steve-O says in his trademark gravelly voice.
‘It’s properly triple X-rated.’
Regarding said stunts, he goes into eye-watering and hilarious detail that probably isn’t repeatable – and besides, let’s not spoil the surprise for those with tickets.
Born Stephen Glover in Wimbledon in 1974, this tour – culminating in three shows at London’s Hackney Empire – is a homecoming of sorts. Even more so given that Steve-O lived in the capital for almost a decade during his adolescence.
‘From the age of 9 to 18, I was basically in London the whole time,’ he says.
‘I’m profoundly grateful for it because in America where everything’s so spread out, life doesn’t really begin until you turn 16 and get a car. But all the public transport and lack of parental supervision roaming around London made me a free spirit.’
After graduating from the American School in London, Steve-O returned to the United States to attend the University of Miami for an abysmal academic year.
‘I f***ed up in every way possible, man! I didn’t go to class, I was kicked out of the dorms, I just dropped out,’ he says.
‘I knew at 19 years old that I was utterly incapable of keeping a job, and I lacked the skills to navigate the world that we live in. I believed in my core that I was going to fail miserably at life, and there was a lot of angst behind that.’
Steve-O’s fortunes would change by the turn of the millennium. After sending his skateboarding videos (and later DIY stunts) to people in the industry – and generally anyone who would watch – he made a valuable connection in Jeff Tremaine: the then editor of Big Brother skateboarding magazine and soon-to-be director of the Jackass TV series.
Premiering on MTV in October 2000, Jackass soon broke the network’s rating records, cementing itself as a breakaway force in millennial pop culture. Its camcorder-shot skits of public pranks, skateboarding fails, stomach-churning challenges, and ill-fated, homemade stunts simultaneously delighting and appalling viewers across the globe.
Alongside co-stars Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius, the late Ryan Dunn (who died in a car crash in 2011) and more, Jackass ran for three brief seasons before Jackass: The Movie, the first of four feature-length installments, arrived in 2001. All four films have been tremendous box office successes, with the most recent, Jackass Forever, opening last year.
Given social media’s modern-day ubiquity, allowing for the rise of short-form, viral content across the likes of Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, there’s an argument that Jackass was well ahead of its time.
Are the content creators of today indebted to the franchise?
Steve-O’s response is typically modest.
‘I don’t think that anyone owes us anything, but I do believe that Jackass was culturally significant on some level. When it came out, not everyone had a video camera in their pocket, so there was very little noise to compete with.
‘Skateboarders were the first content creators, because it was the one activity that you had to tape to try and get sponsored. But even a skateboarder couldn’t sit through an hour of it, so skateboarding videos always had intermittent comic relief and crazy s**t in them! I made it my goal to be the crazy s**t, not the skateboarder.’
At this point, my Wi-Fi starts playing up, but Steve-O, without a moment’s hesitation, insists he’ll call me back on my mobile. ‘No sweat, dude.’ It’s a testament to how outgoing and courteous he is. And now 49, it’s obvious that he’s invested ample time in getting to know himself, examining how his psyche feeds directly into the things he does.
‘I think the human experience is almost like a cruel prank. We only have one instinct, which is to survive. But we only have one guarantee, and that’s that we won’t! I view this experience as wrapping your head around this impossible dilemma, and I think there are three ways that people deal with their mortality: reproduction, religion, and leaving stuff behind.
‘For me, turning to the video camera was like this existential crisis of the human condition. Like, f**k! I’m gonna be dead, but what I document will live on. I want people to know that I was here, and after I’m dead these videos can still play. We know why the cavemen drew those stick figures in the caves, it’s because they were bummed about dying!’
He admits to being an ‘attention wh**e’, and that this is a ‘self-obsessed view’, but it’s clear that at his core there’s still a boyish, unassuming longing to make people laugh.
‘We’re all in the same jam and we all have problems. The idea that I can do ridiculous s**t and temporarily distract people, I like to think that it’s a service,’ he says.
‘Entertainment’s a big deal, and I love to make people’s problems go away for a little bit.’
And Steve-O has had his own troubles.
Over the years, he’s been open about his drug and alcohol addictions but is now celebrating 15 years of sobriety.
To help facilitate these lifestyle changes, did he ever consider giving up all the craziness that comes with simply being Steve-O?
‘It’s a great question. When I first got sober, I wasn’t sure.’ he says. ‘When you come into the world of recovery, you learn that you effectively have to change everything about your life.
‘You have to end relationships that revolve around getting loaded. You have to surrender yourself to a higher power and make sobriety your number one priority in life, deflating your ego and adopting spiritual principles. For me to hear all that, how the f**k does that jive with being Steve-O from Jackass? I didn’t know if I could continue, but then Knoxville calls me and asks if I wanna do Jackass 3D. I was scared but I knew I couldn’t turn it down. Certainly, those guys were not clean and sober but they were all super supportive. My sobriety was safe if nothing else [laughs].
‘On set, I was really uncomfortable in my own skin and timid about speaking up on camera, but it was so important for me to demonstrate that sobriety didn’t turn me into a f***ing p**sy!’
He continues about his excitement for the tour, especially the three-show stand in London where he’s filming a special (‘Buy your goddamn tickets! I wanna promote the dog s**t out of these shows!’), but it’s his sign-off that stays with me.
‘To go back to the beginning when we were talking about life, the one thing that helps is to learn from your mistakes and make the appropriate adjustments to essentially get better at the art of living.’
Steve-O’s had leeches eat his eyeballs, he’s inhaled another man’s farts through a hose, and he’s used himself as live bait for hammerhead sharks, but he’s spot on there.
Steve-O’s ‘The Bucket List Tour’ is touring the UK now, closing in London on 14 July. Tickets available at: www.steveo.com.
Got a story?
If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us [email protected], calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.
MORE : Logan Paul and girlfriend Nina Agdal ‘engaged after one year of dating’
MORE : Dolly Parton is absolutely not down with having an Abba-style avatar
For all the latest Entertainment News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
