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I almost died. But I’m still here!’ Johnny Knoxville on parties, moral panic and risking it all for Jackass
His outrageous stunt show ran for just 10 months, but became wildly popular. He tells of being inspired by his hard-drinking father, his years in therapy and suffering brain damage
I hear Johnny Knoxville’s Tennessee drawl before I see him. “I’m gonna getcha!” he barks – part children’s entertainer, part axe murderer – as he chases the small child of one of his entourage down the hotel corridor. “Where’s my little honey bunny?” His infectious cackle and her giggling shrieks ricochet into the room where I am waiting to meet him.
Knoxville has been provoking shock and delight for 22 years, ever since his TV show Jackass first aired on MTV. The formula was beautifully simple: a ragtag group of skateboarders and oddballs with a punk-rock aesthetic filmed themselves undertaking painful, grotesque DIY stunts – no context necessary. Audiences tuned in for the back yard suburban anarchy, but stayed for the gang’s camaraderie. It was absurd and puerile – the New York Times dismissed the film that followed the TV series as “a documentary version of Fight Club, shorn of social insight, intellectual pretension and cinematic interest”.
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