Summary
- The Jackass cast has sustained numerous gruesome injuries throughout their careers, collectively costing over $20 million in injuries.
- Steve-O's "poop cannon" stunt resulted in him having an ear canal filled with liquidized dog feces, landing him in the hospital.
- Johnny Knoxville suffered a broken rib, broken wrist, various concussions, and a brain hemorrhage from a stunt involving a bull, which left him with significant injuries and brain damage.
The Jackass cast have sustained many gruesome injuries across their long and zany stunt careers, and Jackass Forever is no exception, adding to the worst Jackass injuries. First aired on MTV in the summer of 2000, the brand has since become synonymous with pain, as its performers compete in increasingly grandiose, dangerous stunts on the way to making its troupe rich and famous. Even more jaw-dropping is that the group is responsible collectively for over $20 million in injuries since filming began in 1999 (via IGN).
After disappearing for 12 years as a collective, the outrageous team were joined in 2022 by some new Jackass stunt performers. on Jackass Forever. Considering the number of injuried Knoxville and company have picked up over the years, it's no real surprise that they were looking for some fresh meat. Collecting broken bones, head bangs, and way too many penis injuries, these are the worst injuries suffered by the Jackass crew while making all the Jackass movies.
Will Jackass 5 Happen? Why This Isn't The End
The Jackass crew is back in action for Jackass Forever, but is it the final rodeo or can fans expect pranks and stunts in years to come?13 Ear Canal Filled With Dog Poop - Steve-O
Jackass Forever (2022)
Jackass Forever
The Stunt: Poop Cannon (Cut from movie). Steve-O takes an air cannon filled with dog poop to the side of his head. The stunt doesn't make it into the final cut of the movie.
While it's not the most life-threatening injury from the Jackass Forever set, the mishap with Steve-O's "poop cannon" stunt is definitely the grossest. It's another stunt that was cut from the theatrical release and one of the few Jackass stunts available online not in any version of the show or movies. Steve-O revealed (via his YouTube) that the "poop cannon" skit landed him in the hospital because he had an ear canal lodged full of liquidized dog feces. The material entered his ear canal with a considerable amount of force, and Steve-O didn't think to wear ear protection.
12 Dislocated Shoulder And Lost Eyebrows - Steve-O
Jackass Forever (2022)
Jackass Forever
The Stunt: Dine And Dash. Steve-O has fish placed around his naked body, before an eagle was encouraged to swoop down and take the bait.
While Johnny Knoxville received the most injuries, fellow returning Jackass start Steve-O did his fair share of time in the hospital while filming Jackass Forever. One of the most notable Steve-O injuries filming Jackass Forever was the moment he dislocated his shoulder and lost both of his eyebrows in a stunt involving wax and a trained eagle. This was one of several of the worst Jackass injuries Steve-O endured during filming, many of which didn't even make it into the theatrical cut of Jackass Forever (although a few, including the eagle stunt, made it into Jackass 4.5)
11 Broken Wrist - Aaron "Jaws" Homoki
Jackass Forever (2022)
Jackass Forever
The Stunt: There wasn't one. Sometimes prep for a movie sets you up to avoid injuries and accidents. On Jackass Forever, it led to the first broken bone.
The first Jackass Forever injury occurred before filming had properly begun. Skateboarder Aaron "Jaws" Homaki broke his wrist only two days into test-filming for Jackass 4. Not much is known about the specifics of the incident, however. While he dealt with one of the worst Jackass injuries, Homoki never stopped his daring ways. He has spent most of his skateboarding career taking big drops and falls and getting up to go again. He is also a world champion skateboarder, winning the Bronze Medal at the 2014 X Games.
10 Multiple Unspecified Injuries - Steve-O and Johnny Knoxville
Jackass Forever (2022)
9
Jackass Forever
The Stunt: The Marching Band. Most of the Jackass crew (including Bam Margera), suit up as a marching band and proceed to march in formation across a treadmill, which slingshots them all into a wall on top of each other.
One stunt landed both Knoxville and Steve-O in hospital with multiple of the worst Jackass injuries. For the stunt, multiple members of the cast dressed up in marching band attire, complete with instruments. Coincidentally, this is one of the few Jackass Forever Bam Margera appearances. The Jackass marching band jumped onto a moving treadmill, which catapulted them across a concrete floor into a corrugated iron wall. This went worse than expected, and both Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O found themselves needing time out to recover. The incident was widely covered by the media at the time and helped to promote Jackass Forever.
8 Severe Concussion - Johnny Knoxville
Jackass The Movie (2002)
Jackass: The Movie
The Stunt: Department Store Boxing. Despite his severe weight deficit and lack of professional training, Johnny Knoxville fights boxing cult hero Butterbean (Eric David Scott Esch) in a department store.
Jackass: The Movie retains some of the franchise's most memorable and iconic moments. Stunts such as "The Giant Shopping Cart" and "Off-Road Tattoo" have become some of the most-watched and revered Jackass stunts. Yet, it was "Department Store Boxing" that proved the most dangerous stunt of the first movie in terms of the worst Jackass injuries. Johnny Knoxville partners with boxer Butterbean, whose impressive career was defined by 65 knockout wins. Butterbean does not pull his punches in this stunt, pummeling Knoxville again and again.
It quickly becomes clear Knoxville stands no chance, but Butterbean forces him to stand one last time to line him up for a knockout blow. Knoxville reportedly took days to recover from the severe concussion he sustained, while the Jackass star also had to get stitches in his head to close Butterbean's handiwork. It is also worth noting Knoxville filmed the entirety of Jackass: The Movie with a broken ankle, although he was not aware of this particular injury's severity at the time.
7 Broken Collarbone - Steve-O
Jackass Forever (2022)
Jackass Forever
The Stunt: Unknown (Cut Footage). In a stunt that was, once more, cut from the final movie, Steve-O was supposed to do a handspring, failed it and did a collarbone spring instead.
Steve-O revealed that he broke his collarbone during a Jackass Forever stunt that didn't make the theatrical cut. Steve-O described the incident in an interview following the release of Jackass Forever (via The Hollywood Reporter). While he didn't go into detail about what he was trying to do and what went wrong, he did explain that the recovery process from one of his worst Jackass injuries was pretty intensive. "I broke my collarbone really dramatically. Like fully in half. So I had it put back together with two plates and a bunch of screws, but that footage didn’t make the cut."
6 Broken Skull - Ehren McGhehey
Jackass 3D (2010)
Jackass 3D
The Stunt: Lamborghini Tooth Pull. Some of the OG Jackass crew decide to "help" Danger Ehren straighten a tooth by extracting it the most natural way: by tying a piece of string to it and the other end to an accelerating lamborghini.
Danger Ehren McGhehey has had at least 25 surgeries due to unscripted Jackass antics over the years, including three broken backs and a whopping nine knee surgeries. Yet, it was the "Lamborghini Tooth Pull" stunt that eclipsed all others in terms of pain for McGhehey, whose face literally broke from his tooth to his eye in the moments following the stunt.
The simple premise of pulling a tooth using the force of Bam's Lamborghini was accepted by McGhehey nonchalantly during the Jackass 3D stunt. However, the force from the sports car's acceleration was so great it ended up pulling his face hard enough to cause one of the worst Jackass injuries in history, and easily one of the most traumatic. However, while there is far less blood than expected, it is McGhehey's screams that are hard to hear, with filming subsequently delayed as McGhehey was hospitalized for over a week.
5 Flayed Skin & Lost Nipple - Steve-O
Jackass (2000-2001)
Jackass
The Stunt: Little Red Wagon. During the original show, Steve-O applied his skateboarding skills to ride a child's little red wagon and take a serious fall in it.
While many of the worst Jackass injuries seem to be sustained on movie sets as the crew ups the proverbial ante on each other, the energetic raspy-voiced Steve-O's lost skin confirms his total commitment to his stunts. In the same year of dangerous stunt filming, Jackass' Steve-O managed to lose 30% of the skin on his posterior and take home a permanent souvenir that lives within him to this day. In a stunt for MTV's Jackass series, Steve-O careens down a hill in a little red wagon before falling onto the concrete below at speed.
The result was an almost complete loss of skin on portions of his bottom, with the Jackass star unable to sit for two weeks and filming on pause during recovery. No sooner had Steve-O returned to the Jackass set, as he was lined up for another stunt, in which a BB gun pellet is shot through his nipple. Once again, this stunt did not go exactly to plan, with Steve-O's nipple being blasted off and the pellet being wedged inside his skin, where it still nestles to this day. This stunt was not even aired, with the footage only released in January 2016 – six years after the incident.
4 A Broken Rib, Broken Wrist, Concussion, and Brain Hemorrhage - Johnny Knoxville
Jackass Forever (2022)
Jackass Forever
The Stunt: The Magic Trick. Continuing his fondness for bulls, Johnny Knoxville attempts to do a magic trick in a bull ring, with a very unappreciative bull.
In typical fashion, Johnny Knoxville suffered the most during filming and received a broken rib, broken wrist, various concussions, and a hemorrhage in his brain from a single stunt involving a bull. The accident left Knoxville with significant injuries and received international press coverage as one of the worst Jackass injuries imaginable. Speaking on Howard Stern's show, Knoxville revealed that the bull Jackass stunt left him with brain damage and took him months to recover. “I can’t take any more hits to the head,” he said (via Howard Stern). “My brain was just playing tricks on me. I got really depressed and over-focused on things… I did have to start medication for the first time in my life."
3 Torn Urethra - Johnny Knoxville
Jackass Number Two (2006)
Jackass Number Two
The Stunt: The Jet Ski. In an attempt to emulate Evel Knievel, Johnny Knoxville jumps a jet ski.
Knoxville's movie career jumped again when he managed to top his Butterbean-induced battering in the subsequent long-delayed sequel, Jackass Number Two, in what will inevitably go down as one of the worst Jackass injuries in history. During Jackass Number Two, Knoxville attempts a backflip on a moving motorbike, Evil Knievel-style, but ends up taking himself out of commission for weeks on end. As Knoxville jumps, he loses control of the bike, causing the Jackass member to land awkwardly on the ground. Later hospital scans would reveal a torn urethra for the Jackass production's leading man.
2 Life-Threatening Blood Clot - Ryan Dunn
Jackass Number Two (2006)
Jackass Number Two
The Stunt: The Climax. The whole crew come together for a Western themed extravaganza.
Prior to his tragic passing in 2011, Jackass' Ryan Dunn developed a reputation alongside longstanding Jackass member Steve-O as one of the most reckless. Jackass Number Two's final climactic scene was designed as pure, unadulterated chaos as the main core of the cast is dressed in Western-themed attire before being tormented by other stunt crew members. The worst of these is tying Dunn and Bam Margera's legs to horses, who promptly bolt once the bulk of the scene's drama erupts.
Dunn and Margera are predictably pulled out of the frame, with Dunn landing horribly on his right shoulder and causing a life-threatening blood clot to form alongside his severed muscles. The blood clot’s position in Ryan Dunn’s body was considered life-threatening because it was closely located to his heart and brain, although the clot was successfully removed in the following days.
1 Ruptured Testicle - Ehren McGhehey
Jackass Forever (2022)
Jackass Forever
The Stunt: Cup Test. In an escalation of a classic Jackass stunt, Danger Ehren takes a punch from the hardest hitter in combat sports. Right in his groin.
“Danger” Ehren McGhehey had to leave the Jackass Forever set in an ambulance following one incident when a stunt gone wrong left him with a ruptured testicle, one of the most terrifying of the worst Jackass injuries. Danger Ehren was recreating the infamous "cup test" skit from the first Jackass movie. For the uninitiated, this involves testing the efficiency of sports-grade testicle protection by dropping/throwing/shooting heavy objects at Johnny Knoxville's crotch. For Jackass Forever, the skit was recreated by McGhehey, although things didn't go according to plan. One of his testicles ruptured, requiring an ambulance trip to the ER.