You know him as a "Jackass," a "Wild Boy," and a "Party Boy," but how much
do you really know about Chris Pontius? This is the untold truth of the "Jackass Forever" star.
"Big Brother" is to "Jackass" what the National Lampoon magazine is to its better-known film
classics like "Caddyshack," "Animal House," and "Vacation." The subversive skate magazine was run
by people like eventual "Jackass" ringmaster Jeff Tremaine and videographer Spike Jonze,
and it brought together the west coast half of the original core "Jackass" crew.
Johnny Knoxville shot himself with a gun for a "Big Brother" article,
Jason "Wee Man" Acuña worked there, and Chris Pontius was first interviewed by the magazine
in 1992 as a young skater who quickly became so much more than just a one-time featured figure.
Pontius would go on to write for the magazine for a while. His talents obviously extended
beyond his skating career since he even starred in some of the publication's movies,
which were full-on proto-"Jackass" extravaganzas.
He eventually ended up getting fired by Big Brother, but you know how the story worked out
from there. When the magazine's video team started looking at making a show for MTV,
his former colleagues decided that he had a little special something they were looking for – that
"thing" being a willingness to parade around the world in a thong for the sake of comedy.
As Chris Pontius told the Hollywood Reporter,
he was "nude and in Big Brother before [he] was even 18." Although this would
technically be against the law, somehow, no legal hammers came down. From day one, though,
Pontius felt comfortable being in as little clothes as possible in front of the camera.
Pontius' first big character was named "Party Boy," a rambunctious
herald of good times who would enter a place,
tear off his clothes, and dance around in skimpy underwear. The show was on MTV,
so he couldn't go au naturel, but he got about as close as he could, to the audience's delight.
There was even a "Jackass" skit in which the self-starter stuntman posed for a nude
photoshoot with the ambition of getting into the pages of "Playgirl." On a show where everybody
hurts themselves in a very real way, it's a testament to Pontius' natural charisma that
he was able to keep people entertained and make a name for himself simply by taking off his clothes.
You might think the idea of porch pirating — stealing packages off somebody else's porch — is
a "Jackass" thing, but you'd be wrong. The crew hurt themselves but never anybody else and would
never consider it funny to steal from the average homeowner. And given how hardcore these guys are,
they'd definitely be the wrong ones to target — especially the savage Chris Pontius.
He recently landed in the news when footage from his front door caught a guy stealing a package
off his porch that was meant for his wife. As the guy walked off with the box, Pontius ran out the
door and took off after him. He then posted the footage to his Instagram and made a big report.
He was prescient enough to catch footage of the guy's car and info on his way out,
which is pretty impressive. It sounds like Pontius didn't manage to find the guy,
though, because if he had, there probably would have been a fight.
It's tough to imagine Chris Pontius, the constantly-smiling-and-laughing
member of the "Jackass" family, being a fighter. But apparently,
he knows how to scrap. In an October 2020 interview on Steve-O's podcast,
Pontius detailed a few of his fights. He explains how occasionally, his friends would start a fight,
only to leave him holding the bag and having to take on eight guys at once.
"Growing up, fist-fighting seemed like a really important thing to be able to do."
In a famous "Jackass" skit where he dresses as the devil and campaigns to keep God out of California,
a passerby punches him, and Pontius is completely unfazed. Apparently,
there was even a situation where Pontius and Steve-O passed out eggs to an audience and
told them to launch them at the band Electric Six.
The band didn't appreciate it and allegedly threw a beer at Steve-O and his date.
Pontius then put on a wrestling singlet and ran to their trailer, challenging them to a fight. When
the band continued hiding in their trailer, he punched in a window until security came.
There's a pretty legendary episode of MTV's "Cribs" in which Chris Pontius tours the
audience around his "house": a Toyota Tacoma. It has to be at the top of the
list of all-time hilarious "Cribs" segments as Pontius walks the camera through the vehicle,
eventually exploring the bed, where he goes through all his g-strings and costumes.
"Van Halen headband, from 1984."
In his interview on Steve-O's podcast,
Pontius discusses the fact that he was traveling so much back then and always had so many couches
he could sleep on that he was homeless by choice. Steve-O reveals that he was, too,
but he gave the life up before Pontius did. So how long did Chris essentially live out
of a Toyota Tacoma? According to Party Boy himself, he was homeless for eight years.
"We saved a lot of money on rent, and, and, just, I mean, there was no reason to have a residence."
"Wildboyz" is a nature show unlike any other, combining the appreciation of wild animals with
the type of insane stunts that made Pontius, Steve-O, and the "Jackass" crew famous. From
swimming with great whites to playing with snakes, it is equal parts educational and extreme.
The show is also the realization of one of Chris Pontius' boyhood dreams.
As he says in the Steve-O podcast, Pontius grew up loving the series "Mutual of Omaha's Wild
Kingdom." He and Steve-O discuss how they'd bonded during "Jackass" and wanted to do a
project together, so when the stunt show ended, they, Jeff Tremaine, and a few other members
of the "Jackass" team developed the idea of an animal show done in a way only they could do it.
As the Hollywood Reporter explains,
"Wildboyz" also helped lead to the making of "Jackass Number Two." Steve-O told the outlet,
"Knoxville joined us for a while. Knoxville says, 'Have the dog bite me and shoot me
with the 9mm gun while the dog's biting me.' And Tremaine says to Knoxville, 'Hey, whoa,
let's not do this for MTV2. If you have that in you, let's make another movie.'"
Another great story Pontius describes on Steve-O's podcast is how he purposely called out
the wrong group for an award at the 2003 European VMAs. Pontius says he kind of got talked into it,
though he fully admits that he went through with the prank because he thought it would be funny.
When he opened the envelope to see the winner was Coldplay,
he first said the winner was the White Stripes. As they got up to receive their award,
Pontius then said he was kidding, and it was actually Coldplay. This incident is hard to
find a video of, leading one online commenter to suggest MTV edited it out of subsequent replays.
On the podcast, Pontius describes how his increased celebrity and the responsibilities
and privileges that came with it were tough to handle. He describes another awards show
where he and Steve-O were given amazing hotel rooms, only for Pontius to get extremely drunk
and end up passing out naked on top of an SUV outside, returning to the hotel in disgrace.
Despite all the crazy (and many would say immature) stunts that
make Chris Pontius seem like the living embodiment of Peter Pan,
he has, in fact, grown-up. Pontius owns a house, has a wife, and in 2019, he became a dad.
As he announced on Instagram on December 14, 2019,
"I am beyond excited to announce the birth of my Son, Axe Magnus Pontius! Thank you,
Everybody, for your kind words, positivity, and inspiration for all these years!"
Shortly after, Steve-O posted a picture on Facebook of himself, his longtime bromantic
partner Pontius, and Axe in a loving embrace. Steve-O wrote, "Chris is going to be a really
great dad, and Axe is going to be a very wild boy." Given Pontius' history of embracing
danger and at times living on a razor edge, the sharp name of Axe is pretty appropriate.
In his podcast interview with Chris Pontius, Steve-O describes how Pontius and Brandon
DiCamillo were the two most naturally-funny guys in the crew, joking about how he always
had to do gross and painful stunts while Pontius could carry less dangerous bits thanks solely to
his sense of humor. In fact, Pontius' sense of humor and charisma are strong enough that
he's one of the few "Jackass" guys to also have acted in a few feature roles.
He appears as "Irish Henchman" in 2003's "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle." He
plays Black Randy — the punk legend who started an L.A. punk label that released
songs by groups including the Germs — in the Darby Crash biopic "What We Do is Secret."
He even has a major role in Johnny Knoxville's 2018 film "Action Point."
This is especially poignant because, again, it's proof that the "Jackass" guys
really liked Pontius enough to single him out for inclusion in their personal projects.
Pontius has several other roles, and while he may forever be known
primarily as a wildboy and a jackass, the skater who became a writer who became a star who became
a dad has shown that reinvention is just another weapon in his arsenal.
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