Johnny Knoxville built his entire career on his extreme stunts, starting with his old MTV series, Jackass.
While Knoxville moved on to real acting roles in movies like Dukes of Hazzard, he kept going with his crazy stunts with a series of Jackass movies.
In February, the latest Jackass movie hits theaters with Knoxville, Steve-O and more of the original cast returning for the latest series of ridiculous and dangerous stunts.
However, Jackass Forever will be the last time Johnny Knoxville takes part in these dangerous stunts.
Johnny Knoxville giving up extreme stunts after Jackass Forever
Johnny Knoxville, 50, was on The Howard Stern Show and talked about the new movie and his injuries while shooting it.
It seems that Johnny isn’t willing to risk his future health anymore after suffering a series of injuries on the new movie’s set.
He said he broke his wrist and ribs. However, that isn’t what has convinced him to hang up his boots.
He told Stern he suffered a concussion that resulted in hemorrhaging in the brain.
“My cognitive abilities were in steep decline after that hit,” Johnny said. “No one in my family is happy with the stunt.”
This was during the stunt where he was hit by a bull.
“The bull hit was the worst hit I’ve ever taken from a bull or maybe period,” Johnny revealed. “I remember taking some tests. The neurosurgeon said, ‘Do you have trouble paying attention right now?’ I said, ‘Yeah, why?’ He goes, ‘Because you scored a 17 on [your attention].’ That’s out of 100.”
That scared him and led to further treatment to try to help ease the damage.
“I had to go under all these type of treatments, this transcranial magnetic stimulation, which they buzz your head with these magnets for about 30 minutes at a time,” Johnny said.
He said he underwent 10 or 12 of these treatments over a two-month period to help treat his depression and improve his cognitive skills.
“I can’t take any more hits to the head,” Johnny finished. “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. It completely turned me around — that and doing therapy.”
Johnny Knoxville to appear next on WWE
The good news is that Johnny Knoxville has recovered and moved on from the worst of the injuries and is promoting the new movie.
“It was a really hard recovery from this last injury but I’m great now. I feel like I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been,” Johnny said.
This has also led him to work with WWE, where he will compete in the Royal Rumble on Saturday, January 29.
He will be in the Rumble match itself and has been appearing on WWE SmackDown on Fox to start an angle with Sami Zayn. There is little chance he does much of anything physical in the match, but he should be there long enough to at least eliminate Zayn to pay off the storyline.
This was all to help promote Jackass Forever, which hits theaters on February 4.
Jackass Forever premieres in theaters everywhere on February 4.