How did a canine companion keep Steve-O sober? Where did the part-time stuntman and full-time
troublemaker get his unmistakable voice? And
did he really go to clown college? This is the untold truth of Steve-O.
For Steve-O, the path to "Jackass" stardom began long before the show
itself. He told Forbes that he first began experimenting with videotaping when his dad
won a camera from a golf tournament while the comedian was still a teenager. Steve-O
took the camera from his dad's closet and used it to film skateboard tricks with his friends,
discovering that he had a real knack and passion for filming in the process.
It wasn't until after Steve-O went to college at the University of Miami
that he got the idea to film more elaborate stunts. He told Forbes,
"I spent more time partying and jumping off the diving boards at the pool than going to class,
which was why I got dumped by my girlfriend."
In the midst of heartbreak, Steve-O turned back to filming and started to videotape
himself performing dangerous stunts. The reactions he got from people who
watched his tapes convinced him to drop out of school and become a performer.
Steve-O's stint at the University of Miami wasn't the end of his education.
He later attended the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College with 32 other classmates.
Steve-O told Graham Bensinger that he got the opportunity to work alongside another group
of clowns on a cruise ship. The job only lasted a season, though, because, quote,
"there was a clown mutiny." The other clowns didn't get along with Steve-O,
and they all threatened to leave if he returned for another season, so the management fired him.
Luckily, the job also gave Steve-O the inspiration for a major stunt. Standing on stilts,
Steve-O would light his clown suit on fire, then have a unicycler ride through his legs while
a skateboarder jumped over his head and through a fireball that he spit out of his mouth.
For the finale, he'd chug a beer and tip over. Steve-O called Jeff Tremaine to pitch him the
idea, and they filmed the stunt as a pilot for MTV. The station refused to air the stunt but
liked the idea and Steve-O enough to create "Jackass."
Who knew that being an over-the-top stuntman could land you in jail? Steve-O found out the
hard way in July 2002, when a performance at a nightclub in Louisiana very nearly landed
him behind bars with a felony. Two of the stunts in Steve-O's performance came back to bite him.
First, he received a principal to second-degree battery charge for
"presiding over" a stunt that ended in a club bouncer knocking a college student unconscious.
Then he got a felony obscenity charge for stapling his scrotum to his thigh.
After much negotiation, First Assistant District Attorney Mark Rhodes said that
the prosecution agreed that Steve-O hadn't been an active participant in the battery
and that his scrotum stapling was, quote, "more than likely protected under free speech
when conducted in front of paying adult patrons." Steve-O avoided the charges and
a trial by agreeing to be on probation for one year, donate $5,000 to a local
shelter for battered women and children, and to never perform in Terrebonne Parish again.
The Louisiana incident wasn't the last time one of Steve-O's stunts led him into legal
troubles. In fact, he was arrested again, this time in Sweden, just a few months later.
He swallowed a condom full of marijuana and snuck it through customs as a stunt for the
"Don't Try This At Home" show he and his fellow "Jackass" members were performing in Stockholm.
Steve-O's fans know him as a stuntman, and some even know him as a stand-up comedian, but not
many people are aware of Steve-O the rapper. Back in 2011, he recorded and released the album "The
Dumbest Ass---e in Hip Hop" to not much fanfare at all. The CD included a bonus DVD of more Steve-O
content and a poster of the album cover that read, "Never before has a rapper been so ... dumb."
With tracks like "Crack Cocaine" and "Poppin' Off," it's no surprise that
Steve-O's album didn't break the charts, but that was likely never his goal to begin with.
Even Steve-O's fans more or less forgot the album entirely the moment it was released.
Steve-O never released a follow-up album, and it doesn't seem likely that he ever will, but fans
can always go back and enjoy one of the stranger moments in the stuntman's career for themselves.
Steve-O went through a massive lifestyle change in the late 2000s. After years of performing
wild stunts partially fueled by drugs and alcohol, he decided to get sober,
and he's maintained that sobriety since 2008. When talking about it, Steve-O makes what was
likely a lengthy and difficult decision seem totally simple. He told Men's Health,
"Here's what got me motivated to change: I hit a wall. I really reached a point where
thank god, my life got so bad that I had to surrender to the process of recovery."
The process has entirely transformed his life,
and it's left him with plenty of energy for more stunts.
Of course, no one goes through recovery alone, and Steve-O credits his rescue dogs,
Walter and Bernie, with keeping him going. He adopted his first dog when he first embarked on
the recovery journey in 2008, and he said it's been good for him to, quote, "have a priority
that's not myself." Since then, Steve-O's dogs have become his closest friends. They've helped
to deepen his connection with animals in general, and that's also become a major part of his life.
Steve-O has been an outspoken animal rights activist for years,
and sometimes he combines his passion for ridiculous stunts with his love of animals to
powerful results. In 2014, Steve-O and five of his friends changed a "SeaWorld
Drive" sign just outside of San Diego to say "SeaWorld Sucks."
"If doing that was wrong, I don't wanna be right."
That got people talking, but not as much as Steve-O might have wanted, so
the following year, he upped the ante.
Steve-O knows how to get attention, and climbing a 100-foot crane certainly did the trick.
The machine hovered above Sunset Boulevard, which gave the performer
the perfect spot to speak to the world through a giant Shamu balloon with just two words on it:
"SeaWorld Sucks." At the top of the crane, Steve-O set off a series of fireworks before
making his way back to the ground, where he was promptly arrested. From the streets below,
law enforcement couldn't tell whether the man on the crane was suicidal, so they deployed a whole
team to air on the side of caution — a helicopter, five ambulances, and close to 100 firefighters.
Prosecutors charged Steve-O with five misdemeanors that could have landed him in jail for more than
four years. He reached a plea deal for 30 days in jail, three years probation, and a $14,000
reimbursement to the city of Los Angeles. In the end, Steve-O reported for his sentence at
Twin Towers Correctional Facility, but he was released after serving less than eight hours.
In addition to fighting for animal rights with attention-grabbing public displays, Steve-O
also altered his own lifestyle to align with his values. He told Us Weekly that he became a vegan
shortly after he started his recovery, and the decision impacted way more than his diet. He said,
"I think it's benefited every area of my life."
Since that interview, Steve-O hasn't gone back to his meat-eating ways, but
these days he says that he's not a vegan. He's technically a pescatarian because he'll eat
fish and eggs from time to time. That's not his biggest slip-up, though. He told Men's Health,
"I've been letting a lot of dairy slide too. Even admitting that, I have a problem with that."
Despite having been a vegan himself,
Steve-O has also been critical of vegans in the past. He wrote on Instagram,
"To all the combative, annoying vegans who are choosing to attack me for not
forcing veganism on my cats, and for not being a strict, militant vegan
myself […] maybe stop working so hard to pit people who are on your team against you."
The post garnered plenty of backlash from some
vegan commenters, but Steve-O has never been one to care about haters.
Every "Jackass" fan is familiar with Steve-O's voice. There's just
nothing quite like it. He has the gravelly rumble of a cigarette-smoking blues singer,
but he's sounded like that for over 20 years.
"I always thought that my world record for barfing
the most on television might have something to do with it."
Over the years, he's also speculated that his unique tone could have come from swallowing
glass or consuming copious amounts of nitrous oxide in his younger years.
Eventually, Steve-O decided to consult with a doctor to find out the root of his raspy voice,
and the answer wasn't at all what he expected. It turns out Steve-O sounds that way because he uses
his throat muscles rather than his vocal cords to talk. To prevent his condition from getting worse,
Steve-O started working on using his vocal cords with a voice coach,
but he wasn't entirely sold on changing his signature sound.
"I don't even know if I want my voice to change. I kind of like getting recognized
over the phone — and my girl darn sure doesn't want anything different."
"No, I love your voice."
Chances are, even if Steve-O learns how to talk the
"right way," he'll continue to sound like he always has.
After making his name as a stuntman, Steve-O decided to stretch his abilities
and try out a new career path. He began working as a stand-up comedian in 2011,
and he's spent the past decade touring various shows and approaching stand-up
with the same determination he once aimed at his stuntman ambitions.
Steve-O has completed two comedy specials: "Gnarly," which was the first special he took
on tour, and "The Bucket List," which he began touring just as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered
venues across the country. His stand-up acts have always incorporated some of his stuntman roots,
but "The Bucket List" takes things to a whole new level. Notably, he incorporates footage of brand
new stunts and stories into his act, creating a multimedia experience for the audience.
Despite all the work that Steve-O has put into his stand-up acts, he's had a difficult time
getting them out to anyone who isn't in his live audience. He would gladly give the acts to a
streaming platform like Netflix, but so far, there hasn't been any interest in his work. He spoke to
Graham Bensinger in 2019 regarding the possibility of his getting a comedy special on Netflix that,
"They only want to give them to the most prestigious,
pure, you know, lifelong stand-up comedians, of which they do not consider me to be one."
In the same interview with Graham Bensinger, Steve-O explained that he and his fiancée
Lux Wright met on a job that "never ended up seeing the light of day." Even though
the project ended up being a failure, it gave Steve-O the opportunity to meet the love of his
life. The two of them don't plan on ever having kids, but they still have big plans for their
future — opening an animal sanctuary where they'll eventually be able to live when they retire.
"You don't have to know us very well to know that we love animals."
Steve-O told Bensinger,
"We want to have it in Southern California, so we can drive to it."
Ideally, it would also operate as a bed and breakfast that would give people the
opportunity to stay longer and develop deeper relationships with the animals they're visiting.
Steve-O said he hopes it gives people pause the next time they go to eat an animal for dinner.
He went on to explain that in the long term, the sanctuary would also become a daycare for
children with special needs. Steve-O's nephew has Down syndrome and autism,
and he has witnessed the stress his sister is put under while trying to manage her career
and take care of her children. He wants to be able to give back to parents with
similar struggles, and his fiancée is more than happy to create that legacy with him.
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