22 years have passed since Jackass premiered on MTV, and during a recent interview with stuntman Steve-O on the Hotboxing With Mike Tyson podcast (heard below), he admitted that he truly believes that the show that gave him his first taste of fame was “legitimately a bad influence” on the kids of that time.
When Jackass first started, Steve-O says Tyson, “I think we were actually worth vilifying because they didn’t have YouTube or video on the internet back then and we were legitimately a horrible influence.”
“When Jackass was released, young children from all over the nation and even the world began to present themselves in hospitals because they had seen us doing this crazy shit and wanted to do it for themselves. Little ones all over the world then started fucking themselves up on camera, showing up in hospitals, and getting severely injured “He went on.
He made the point that the world in 2000 was significantly different from the one that viewers might perceive today in a society that values social media.
The stuntman claims, “At that time, you could truly point to us as having a bad influence, but I think over the years, because there’s so much YouTube, Ridiculousness, so much, it’s not our fucking fault anymore.”
The original MTV series aired for three seasons before producing a series of movies, most recently Jackass Forever and Jackass 4.5 earlier this year. A new Jackass series is also in development for Paramount +, as it was announced in May. Steve-O has appeared in all but two of the Jackass-branded projects and is one of the most well-known characters in the Jackass universe.