How many still remember Johnny Knoxville and his weird stunt on the MTV comedy reality show “Jackass”. Knoxville now 46 was a household name. In fact Johnny popular for his slapstick and moronic humor was a big name in the eighties at the peak of the channel’s popularity. The star of Dukes of Hazard and Men in Black II even lent his voice to popular characters but where exactly is Johnny Knoxville. He has disappeared without a trace. What happened to Johnny Knoxville?
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When Knoxville first started out on the long road to stardom, he was disappointed several times. He thought by moving to California, he would get a break but all he got was commercials and had to work as a film extra to survive.
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He soon tried working as a magazine columnist and started pitching multiple original ideas to magazines. He hit upon the idea of even testing self-defense equipment on himself for a Skateboarding magazine called “Big Brother”. This would eventually lead Johnny into the world of the stuntman and Jackass.
Jackass was Johnny’s brainchild. Of course some friends pitched in and MTV soon picked it up. In fact Johnny was even approached by Saturday Night Live for a weekly show which he refused.
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His show soon gained a lot of popularity both positive and negative especially because of the jackass bizarre stunts. Many parents even voiced their concern over the bad example his harebrained stunts had on their children.
Jackass would always come with warnings that the stunts should never be replicated but in spite of that, the show invited a lot of controversy and was even blamed for several injuries and even sometimes deaths.
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Knoxville soon started realizing that the show jackass was not doing much for his name and he was inviting to much negative publicity. He started exploring a new career. When he turned to acting, many movies of his ended up box office flops.
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He then started doing voice-overs and you might have heard him as the voice of Johnny Krill in the special episode titled “Extreme Sports”. He also did voice-overs for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Family Guy. Johnny was on a downward spiral where he was caught up in quite a number of controversies too.
The most controversial incident was when he was caught at Lax airport with a grenade in his bag. Imagine that?? Who would do such a stupid thing as carrying a grenade?
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At the time Johnny also admitted how the Jackass show took a toll on his health being injured several times in the process. In 2009 he also revealed on the Howard Stern show that he had torn his urethra and had to wear a catheter till it healed. He was thrown from a 400 pound motorbike which landed on his urethra.
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In 2011, he was devastated emotionally by the death of friend and Jackass co-star Ryan Dunn who succumbed to injuries from a car crash. Dunn 34 was killed along with the show’s production assistant Zachary Hartwell when their Porsche 911 hit a tree at high speed and burst into flames. A toxicology report found that Dunn was highly drunk at the time.
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Dunn’s death deeply affected Johnny who went into depression. He was quoted as saying “You’ll have to excuse me, I’m just very sad because I lost my brother and my world got about 134 percent less funny. He was also quoted saying in interviews. “I don’t know what to say right now so I will close with I love you, Ryan. I have a lot of emotions swirling, but I want you to know I love you so very much.”
After Dunn’s death, Johnny decided to try and get his life back on track again. He wanted to begin afresh. He even produced a movie under the Jackass brand name in 2013 releasing the movie Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa.
In Bad Grandpa, Knoxville played a dirty old man and got the movie made at a $15 million budget. The movie was a super hit at the box office and raked in an impressive $151 million. The movie also won a Oscar nomination in the best hair and makeup category. It would end up losing to the “Dallas Buyers Club”
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With Bad Grandpa’s success, Knoxville was on the right track again. He was approached by Paramount for an exclusive contract which he signed. Knoxville would continue producing movies under the banner of his production company “hello Junior” but on partnership with paramount.
Knoxville revealed his happiness by saying “I am over the damn moon about continuing an amazing partnership with Paramount Pictures,” he said. “I have many more movies to make and bones to break. I am glad I will be doing it for Paramount.”
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However, the deal didn’t last long and he wasn’t seeing much success. He wasn’t really seen again for a couple of years till fans saw him in small roles like “Nature Calls” and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “The Last Stand”. He was even seen in 2016 Jackie Chan’s “Skiptrace”.
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It’s not easy making movies and given his health, his critics and failure to produce results led to a poor box office journey for Knoxville once again. It also seems he was too typecast. This is exactly what happened to Johnny Knoxville. It is this fact that has slowly resulted in Knoxville’s reputation taking a beating as an actor and gradually it has become even more difficult for him to get roles.
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