Jackass Forever: The 10 Scariest Injuries Of Johnny Knoxville's Career
Throughout the course of MTV's Jackass and its four subsequent movies (as well as guest appearances), Johnny Knoxville has taken some awful hits.
Just before the release of Jackass Forever, Johnny Knoxville told EW: "I knew heading into this, this was my last hurrah with big stunts." Knoxville is 50, and at some point there are but so many times someone can go running with a bull. Or, as Knoxville put it, "You can only take so many chances before one forever catches up with you. I realized that and it's amazing that I'm still walking around. I think I pushed my luck far enough."
It is truly amazing that he's alive, especially considering some of the more intense injuries he's sustained. But those doctor's visits were what made him an MTV reality TV celebrity who became a movie star. It's fair to say that Knoxville has received the most grievous injuries of the Jackass crew, yet it's hard to imagine him walking away from it entirely. However, some of his past brushes with death don't make sticking around any easier.
When asked by News what his most damaging injury had been ahead of Bad Grandpa's premiere, Knoxville was quick to answer. Like in most of Jackass Forever's funniest stunts, the injury was to his genitals. In his words: "I would say breaking my jim-dog was the most psychologically damaging thing I have ever done." The stunt gone wrong included a motorcycle and a massive dirt mound. But Knoxville let go of the bike, he fell back to the ground, and the bike came down and landed on his lower half.
Knoxville elaborated on the injury, saying "I had to wear a bag for six weeks. And then I had to catheter twice a day for three and a half years afterward, with a tube 18 inches long about the size of a No 2 pencil because the scar tissue would build up." To clarify, the process is what is known as urinary catheterization, and carrying it out several times for multiple years is an extreme frequency necessary only for the most severe injuries.
According to E! News, Knoxville suffered a brain hemorrhage while filming Jackass Forever's requisite bull-fighting scene. Per director Jeff Tremaine, Knoxville was "snoring for three or four minutes. It was gnarly."
Even after the day had passed and Knoxville had been tended to, he continued to see a neurologist. In the actor's words, "My cognitive skills took a couple of months to come back. I was walking and talking and carrying on a conversation, but I wasn't 100 percent for three months. I couldn't sit still. I couldn't focus on anything, which is a problem usually, but it was really a problem. I was like a butterfly, flying around."
Knoxville told EW that while filming Jackass Forever, he was told by a doctor that he's had his last concussion. Knowing the injury (his latest bullfight), it's understandable that it should be his last knock to the head.
However, it wasn't his first, as Knoxville has had 16 or 17 concussions. But there was one that almost killed him, and it was early on. In Jackass: The Movie, Knoxville's most dangerous stunt had to be his fight with American professional boxer Butterbean. As Knoxville put it, "I got vertigo with the concussion when I fought Butterbean. Well, it wasn't much of a fight. It was as one-sided as a train wreck. But yeah, I got vertigo, and that lasted for a few weeks. Every time I would sit up the room would spin, if I drove around a curve the room would spin. That was pretty crazy."
Knoxville got seriously injured in what was only the second episode of Jackass. Knoxville stands in a goofy outfit and introduces "The Roller Jump." Then, on roller skates, he starts towards the thin, concrete-surrounded L.A. river.
Knoxville looks off even from the beginning of the stunt, which is probably what landed him in the germ-infested water. But on his second attempt, it was even worse. He almost makes it across the river, but slams against the concrete. According to E! News, Knoxville broke his ankle while performing the stunt.
Action Point was a 2018 summer comedy that was released to little audience. That's a shame because Knoxville put himself through the wringer to make it.
For instance, he told EW that at one point he went soaring 25 feet into the air after flying down the alpine slide. When he landed, it was on his face and in Knoxville's words he "got a gnarly brain-erasing concussion and I didn't even know about the blowout fracture in the broken orbital lamina until I got back to the hotel after the emergency room when I blew my nose and my left eye popped out. My orbital lamina bone, they said it didn't break, it just powdered. It disappeared." It's a horrifying injury for the sake of what isn't even one of Knoxville's best theatrical roles.
Knoxville took his box office smash Bad Grandpa and screened it for its natural audience: a frat. However, during the after-party, Knoxville unknowingly took a hit of Ecstasy. Like how he suffers in Jackass Forever, Knoxville can't even take it easy off-camera.
However, instead of freaking out, Knoxville looked to sports. As he told EW, "They had a basketball hoop there so I jumped up and grabbed the net. I had someone throw me a ball and I slammed it through but I tore a tendon in my ring finger. It was just useless."
When Knoxville made a 2001 appearance on Late Show With David Letterman, he knew he had to make a splashy entrance. As opposed to walking out of the curtains, waving to the crowd, and greeting Dave, the Jackass star hung and dropped down from the rafters.
Naturally, it was a hard fall, especially given how Knoxville has admitted to not knowing how to land properly. In his words to EW, "Since I don't know how to fall, I sprained both my ankles so I left there on crutches. It was hard getting around for a while after that but I was honored to bust my ankles for David Letterman."