“Jackass” star Steve-O recently admitted to Mike Tyson’s “Hotboxin” podcast (via IGN) that the long-running MTV sitcom was deserving of defamation in its early days for being a “legitimately bad influence” on children. Three seasons of “Jackass” aired on MTV between October 2000 and August 2001. The franchise then stormed the big screen with four movies and the spin-off “Bad Grandpa”.
“I think at the beginning of Jackass, we really deserved to be slandered because at the time they didn’t have YouTube or an internet video and we were legitimately bad influence,” Steve-O said. “When Jackass came out, little kids were showing up in hospitals all over the country and probably the world because they saw us doing this crazy crap and they wanted to do it themselves. So, little kids everywhere got on video cameras and started fucking themselves and showing up. in hospitals and really get hurt.”
“Back then, you could really refer to us as bad influence,” he added. “But I think over the years, because now there’s a lot of YouTube, [the MTV series] The absurdity of, “So much, this is no longer our damned fault.”
During his original run on MTV, Senator and fellow Al Gore target Joe Lieberman “Jackass” for causing teens and young adults to self-harm in real life. Lieberman went on a campaign MTV urged the cancellation of “Jackass” after a 13-year-old boy attempted a stunt from the show and was sent to a hospital in critical condition with second and third degree burns.
“It is irresponsible for MTV to air these types of stunts on a program that is so popular with young teens,” the senator said in a statement at the time. “I realize the show is for adults and comes with a general disclaimer, but there are some things that are potentially too dangerous and stimulating, particularly for vulnerable children, that they shouldn’t be shown on TV.”
In an interview with diverse Earlier this year, Jackass co-creator and star Jonny Knoxville said Lieberman’s crusade against the show was one of the reasons MTV shut down the series. “We started hiring OSHA employees saying, ‘You can’t do that! You can’t jump from anything higher than four feet! It was impossible to do the show,'” Knoxville said.
Knoxville and Steve-O recently reunited for Jackass Forever, the fourth film in a Paramount-supported series. The film earned $80 million worldwide at the pandemic box office. The studio has since announced that the new “Jackass” series will be released exclusively on Paramount+ in the future.
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