The Wisdom of Bad Decisions

It’s reasonable to assume that someone who volunteers to be human shark bait, ride a snowboard while being towed by a horse, or jump a skateboard off a wooden outhouse that is simultaneously being crashed into by a car would have a lot of permanent physical damage. But in Steve-O’s case, “I’d say outside of terrible tattoos and fake teeth, I really don’t have anything permanent.”

The “Jackass” star and his castmates have perfected performing death-defying stunts with hordes of comedic extras. And it started when MTV ordered Stephen “Steve-O” Glover’s stunt footage for a 2000 pilot series. Because MTV experienced costly lawsuits from previous fire-related incidents, much of the fire footage was rejected.

“As a rule of thumb, I thought whatever you’re doing, it’s just cooler if you’re on fire. So that knocked out a bunch of my footage and stuff,” Steve-O explains. “I was a particularly disturbed individual. I mean, I would argue I still am, but from the very outset of the television show, I knew that I was sitting on a very valuable resource of video footage that was too hot for TV.”

He compiled a series of uncensored videos and released a DVD series, promoting the project in late-night television commercials. “It was called the career ender bonus video, and that really raised my visibility super early on,” Steve-O says. “So it almost doesn’t even matter to me that I did that with allegedly shady individuals and didn’t see any of the money.”

Today, Steve-O is a household name that conjures up visions of painful tricks in hilarious costumes, performing high-stakes antics in intricate set designs. But the name has synonymously grown into one of resilience, discipline, perseverance, and evolution.

Steve-O was 26 when MTV’s “Jackass” began building his celebrity status. Having recently turned 52, “I’m creeping up on having been, you know, arguably famous for half my life,” he notes.

From sobriety and therapy to animal advocacy, tattooing, podcasting, and comedy tours, Steve-O has never stopped making a name for himself. And on June 26, the stuntman returns to the big screen with “Jackass: Best and Last.”

“When we go through life learning from our mistakes, allowing ourselves to learn, and admitting our mistakes, being accountable for our mistakes, I think it really takes the sting out of the aging process because what we lose in our virility, we gain in wisdom, you know,” Steve-O says. “That’s kind of the tradeoff. And I feel that I’ve done it in the way that I described my relationship with the ‘Jackass’ guys as really benefiting from my evolution, my growth. That is just something that applies across the board for me.”

Steve-O has spent the second half of his life strengthening his compassion, building relationships, and discovering new talents. His stunts are still outrageous and painful, and the jokes are as juvenile as ever, but he’s building a life that makes him proud.

A Brotherhood of Pain

The Jackass franchise has delightfully disturbed audiences since its MTV debut, featuring a group of misfits daring to do things no one in their right mind would do: toying around with anacondas in a giant ball pit, bungee-ing inside a poo-filled Porta-Potty, or rolling down a bridge with friends in a giant grocery cart, explosions erupting and dirt bombs blowing in your face. Maniacal, yes. But it paid off. “Jackass: The Movie” was released in 2002 and became a huge success, earning $64 million to date, according to Box Office Mojo.

Steve-O has been open about his addiction struggles during this time and into “Jackass Number Two.” “I was legitimately a disaster. I was so messed up with drugs and alcohol, the drugs in particular. I mean, just all of it, you know, and I just had no off switch, and I was so difficult to be around,” he says.

Steve-O played a key role and was essential to the cast, but there was a lot of cocaine in his system, so he promised the “Jackass Number Two” producers he would cut it out during filming, and he did. But the stuntman was “much more impaired by other things. And so it was bittersweet. I wasn’t on cocaine, but I wasn’t any easier to be around. And creatively, I was just pretty useless,” he confesses.

“I’d say that the second ‘Jackass’ movie, that was just peak ready to die (for me), like danger,” Steve-O continues. “We were in our physical prime. Nobody was saying we were too old, and just everything worked, and the risks we were taking were off the charts. And I really consider that second movie to be the masterpiece if there was one.”

Artistically, perhaps, but if you look at the numbers, 2010’s “Jackass 3D” takes the cake, with lifetime earnings at $117 million to date, according to Box Office Mojo. “I was clean and sober, but still rather newly sober and not yet comfortable in my own skin. I hadn’t found my voice. I was very, you know, just kind of afraid. I was emotionally awkward, and that read, I think, on camera a lot.”

Around 12 years had passed when, in 2022, “Jackass Forever” stormed theaters, delighting its loyal fanbase once again, and debuting at the top of box office charts. In the film, Steve-O’s nether regions were covered in bumblebees, and he dressed as a marching band member playing an instrument, only to be violently ejected off a giant treadmill during his performance. Steve-O was at the top of his game, comfortable in his own skin and finding his stride.

“I’ll never forget going into the office to watch a preliminary cut of that fourth movie. I just thought, ‘Who is this guy, so comfortable, just throwing out lines?’” he explains. “It meant so much to me to have that feeling of, wow, how far I’d come, you know. It’s just like sobriety really is such a big part of my story, especially as it relates to my contribution to both what ends up on screen and my relationship with all the other guys.”

In April 2026, “Jackass” costar Johnny Knoxville posted on Instagram, “Well a wang dang and doodle, I’m happier than a proctologist with a new flashlight to announce that Jackass: Best and Last will hit the theaters June 26th!!” which has garnered 327,000 Instagram likes to date.

“Now we are visibly fucking old, is how it feels,” Steve-O says. “I like to call myself old and harp on that. Like, I get it, you know, but at the same time, when you’re the Jackass guys, age is compounded, I think.”

Featuring freaky stunts with the help of a penial shock collar, a raging bull, a vulgar robot, and an “escape room from hell,” “Best and Last” isn’t short of terrifically terrible tricks. “One big thing was some pretty major butthole training for me,” Steve-O spills. “I spent — I’m not going to say countless hours — but I spent a lot of hours in hotel rooms really trying to train my butthole to do something utterly shocking.”

Midlife Crisis Management

Steve-O has developed a rare style of stand-up comedy and, after a successful run on his 2021-2023 “Bucket List” comedy tour, is currently on his “Crash and Burn” comedy tour.

“With my standup comedy, what happened was it all just evolved into a multimedia experience where it’s become this thing like a ‘Jackass’ movie meets a standup comedy show where I’m doing a standup comedy act, but intermittently throughout the show, videos come on which illustrate the stories that I’m telling,” Steve-O explains.

While “Bucket List” was midlife crisis-themed, he’s past that and now jokes about the reality and trauma of aging in “Crash and Burn.” “What’s old is very subjective, but when you’re Steve-O in your 50s, there’s something about my profile, my persona, my personality even, certainly my career, that does not fucking allow for me to be 50,” he jokes. “Like, being Steve-O in my 50s, it just seems like it’s not okay, and it’s traumatized the fuck out of me.”

Without the constraints of community guidelines, this method of storytelling allows Steve-O to break the rules, which has been a rewarding experience. “I can literally do and show anything that I fucking want, and that’s been so fun and rad,” he says.

He’s approaching the stand-up comedy circuit finish line, but he says he knows he has it in him to develop one more tour. “I’m very clear that the theme of the next show is one of post midlife crisis, where I have finally come to terms with it,” he explains. “I’m no longer whining about it. I’m not traumatized even anymore. Now in my post midlife crisis phase, I’m celebrating the wisdom gleaned from a life of making mistakes and all the wisdom that we accrue.”

Radical Tattoos for Radical Ranch

Some of Steve-O’s wisdom was honed from experience in protecting animals, a subject he has held dear since his early clowning around days. Steve-O attended the Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey Clown College, where he witnessed “what I felt was animal abuse in the circus.” He felt compassion for these animals and soon realized animals’ lives were being used in other cruel ways. He became a spokesperson for PETA, and the Jackass platform gave him some authority that made people stop and listen — and sometimes get offended.

“I’m not proud of my approach. I was just a radicalized fucking militant vegan, you know. Like finger wagging and all this negative reinforcement, which was on full display in my big SeaWorld protest. That was just what I was up to at the time,” he explains.

His soft spot for animals led him to a beautiful, 40-acre property in Tennessee, where he opened The Radical Ranch, a place where neglected and abused animals can be safe, fed, and loved.

“As I’ve grown and evolved, I’ve really wanted to not advocate for animals with negative reinforcement, but rather I just want to do it with positive reinforcement,” Steve-O explains. “There’s no finger wagging, there’s no shaming. I’ve been very clear that I don’t want to have children for the longest time, so I decided I’m going to get a vasectomy, and I’m going to deliberately seek to pour myself into helping animals.”

Steve-O opened The Radical Ranch in 2023, but it was a concept that was years in the making, and raising funds to get the business off the ground was necessary. Shocking as it may be to some, Steve-O is a tattoo artist, so he used his talents for good.

He was at a meet-and-greet one night after performing two comedy show acts, when a fan armed with a tattoo machine asked Steve-O if he would tattoo him. Exhausted but wanting to appease the young man, he knocked out a tattoo as fast as he could.

“As I was tattooing “Yo Mama’s Name” on his butt cheek, it just occurred to me,” he says, “here I am doing this as fast as I possibly can, but the idea popped in my head, ‘What if I tried as hard as I possibly could to do the best job that I possibly could in giving tattoos?’” he explains.

His friend, a 20-plus-year veteran in tattooing, taught him the ropes, from health and safety to technique and tattoo aftercare. Steve-O’s tattooing skills gradually improved, and soon he was a licensed tattoo artist.

“It just struck me one day. I was like, ‘Wow, what if I gave tattoos for charity?’ Just doing it for profit would never feel right to me, but doing it for charity is a totally different deal,” he shares. “What tattooing I did organically generated, or revealed, crazy demand. Like, it’s shocking how much demand there is for a shitty tattoo from Steve-O. It’s so counterintuitive that people want a tattoo from me. Make no mistake, I do better than you would expect me to do, but that’s still not that good.”

Today, The Radical Ranch is a 501c3 non-profit animal rescue organization that is home to several dogs, cats and goats. “The vision, of course, is to rescue animals, give them a good life, but the potential for the vision is to really, on a larger scale, cultivate compassion, spread compassion,” Steve-O shares. “If there’s a way to spread and cultivate and spread compassion far and wide through positive reinforcement, then that’s what I want to do.”

Bad News Tattoos

Steve-O and the rest of the team of merry pranksters are back in “Jackass: Best and Last,” hitting the big screen on June 26, and proving that being dumb and tough can be hilarious and history-making. Steve-O is currently traveling the United States on his “Crash and Burn” comedy tour, inking individuals along the way to raise funds for charity.

“If you know that I’m going to be near you and you want to get a tattoo from me, what I ask is that you email (steveotatsforcharity@gmail.com) the design that you want to get,” Steve-O explains. “Keeping in mind that the design needs to be doable, you know, like understanding that I’ve got limited abilities. Give a doable design that I’m going to think is fun or funny that I’m going to want to do. Send the design along with where you’re located and how much you’re willing to donate to the charity.”

If you can’t make it to one of his comedy shows, you can still get inked by Steve-O at his Gallatin, Tennessee, tattoo shop, The Addiction Ink, where he’s licensed and legally registered. With all of the artwork under his belt, his newfound tattooing skills could have a whole new purpose.

“I was thinking that this would be great to have this if attention whoring really falls off a cliff, and to have this sort of a skill set, this craft in my back pocket, as a way to earn a living down the road if everything goes really sideways,” he says. “Why not? I wonder, did I actually register the trademark ‘Bad News Tattoos’?’”