Johnny Knoxville recently engaged in a tell-all interview with Vanity Fair. Knoxville is the audacious mastermind behind the Jackass franchise, known for his almost surreal tolerance to pain.
In the interview, conducted using a lie detector for added gravitas, Knoxville delves into his vast archive of physical mishaps to declare the most painful one of his career. And, surprisingly, it was not one of the countless concussions or bone fractures that claimed the title. Instead, it was an incident involving pepper spray that Knoxville considers his worst ordeal.
Knoxville’s encounters with danger have been nothing short of nail-biting. The actor is often at the forefront of the Jackass crew’s unrelenting barrage of injuries. Over the past two decades, he has subjected his body to innumerable stunts, many of which sent him straight to the hospital.
While Knoxville’s injuries have become a somewhat amusing side-note to his body of work, they’re often far from trivial. The Jackass star revealed that medical professionals have urged him to cease enduring head blows, suggesting the toll they’ve taken on him is significant.
Yet, it wasn’t a head injury, nor was it a fall or a fracture that Knoxville earmarked as his most distressing experience. Recollecting his years of high-risk antics, Knoxville recalls the sensation of being pepper sprayed:
“You know, like the concussions are bad and the breaks are, you know, not so fun. But I think the worst that I felt, I think, it doesn’t sound like it would be, but the pepper spray. I hated that. It’s like someone lit a fire in your eyes and put it out with kerosene, for 20 or 30 minutes. I didn’t like that. But I’m sure there’s more painful things, but that one’s up there.”
Will Knoxville’s Endurance Lead to a New Jackass Chapter?
Although this might not seem like the most brutal incident in his repertoire, for Knoxville, it was the worst. Interestingly, this incident wasn’t part of a Jackass production but occurred during the filming of the Big Brother video, Number Two.
Despite the agony of the pepper spray, Knoxville also shed light on some other more financially burdensome injuries, including a few brushes with a bull that led to pricey hospital stays. He also recounted a gruesome story about a blowout fracture of his left eye.
The injury was so severe that the eye popped out and had to be reinserted twice – a vivid image that Knoxville casually recounted, even managing to sprinkle some humor into the narrative.
As fans digest the details of Knoxville’s most painful ordeal, speculation about the future of the Jackass franchise continues to brew. Following the release of Jackass Forever, rumors circulated about a new TV series planned for Paramount+, but concrete details remain elusive.
Whether Knoxville and his crew will return to entertain (and frighten) us with more gut-wrenching stunts is yet to be determined. Nonetheless, his willingness to relive his most agonizing experiences for the fans reiterates his undying dedication to the Jackass brand, making the possibility of a new chapter in the franchise seem more plausible.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
