Steve-O also bummed they wouldn't let him shoot himself in the face

A week or so ago, news broke that Jackass veteran stunt performer Steve-O was taking a rare step and deciding not to do one of the extreme things he had previously pledged to do, i.e., get breast implants for a few months and film videos of people trying to beat him up after he deliberately tricked them into thinking he was a woman. This was, obviously, fraught, something Steve-O himself eventually acknowledged after having conversations with a trans person who pointed out the real-world dangers it could be seen as making light of. And while Steve-O’s arrival at that particular decision has opened up several other whole barrels of worms—about privilege, bodily autonomy, transphobia, allyship, artistic freedom, and other heady issues—we can say, with some confidence, that the other stunt he has now been forced to walk back in preparation for his upcoming Super Dummy! live tour will not. Turns out, they won’t let Steve-O shoot himself in the face.

This is from an interview Steve-O gave to Entertainment Weekly this week, in which he says one of his early plans for material to film for his tour included a bit where he shot himself through the cheek with a gun. This did not seem like a big deal to Steve-O, who, admittedly, has a different understanding of bodily harm than many of us: “I figured that I had enough space in between my teeth when my mouth is wide open. With a super slow motion camera, you’d be able to see the bullet pass through my cheeks and my mouth. I didn’t think that the stakes were that high. What, am I going to end up with more fake teeth? Big whoop.”

Tragically, physics intervened in Steve-O’s plans to give himself the Marvin-from-Pulp-Fiction treatment, but in a fun, survivable way: “Especially small caliber bullets like a .22, which is what I would imagine we would have to use, when they hit soft tissue, they absolutely change direction,” notes professor of ballistics Dr. -O. “Enough for it to hit a tooth, which would then absolutely make it ricochet in crazy directions. As hard as I tried, and as many people as I reached out to, all roads led to that not happening either.”

Honestly, we would probably watch an entire tour video that was just Steve-O desperately trying to call around, looking for one person who had the skills, equipment, and sheer “fuck it” moxie to shoot him in the face. Alas, it wasn’t to be, although he does note that “Boy, did I not let go of my determination to get comedy out of guns,” noting that his tour includes video of him filming a hidden camera video at a gun store, asking “for a recommendation on the best gun to shoot myself with.”

The important takeaway from all this, of course, is to persevere, even in the face of the universe telling you it’s a bad idea to shoot yourself in the face for a comedy video. Or, to quote the man himself: “For every terrible idea that didn’t work out, there’s something to really make up for it.” Thank you, Steve-O. You are inspirational, if you squint.