Johnny Knoxville 'started weeping' after wrapping final 'Jackass'

Brendan Morrow, USA TODAYThu, June 25, 2026 at 4:01 PM UTC

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It's the end of a nauseating era.

Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O and the rest of the gang are back for one more round of outrageous stunts in "Jackass: Best and Last" (in theaters June 26), which they have announced is the final movie in the franchise they began on MTV in 2000.

Driving into work on the last day of shooting, "it really hit me," says Knoxville, 55. And when it came time to wrap the final scene, he lost it.

"Usually, the [assistant director] says, 'All right, that's a wrap,'" Knoxville says. "But they handed me the megaphone and let me say that, and I just started weeping."

As usual, "Best and Last," the fifth "Jackass" film and follow-up to 2022's "Jackass Forever," strings together a series of over-the-top stunts and pranks, though this installment falls somewhere in between a sequel and a clip show. Roughly half its runtime consists of new stunts and the other half is archival material, including the best bits from earlier movies and older ones that never made it onto the show.

So after almost 26 years, why end "Jackass"? "It really boils down to Knoxville not being able to stand in front of bulls anymore," longtime cast member Steve-O, 52, says. "It's almost that simple."

The turning point was a gnarly stunt on "Jackass Forever" when Knoxville was struck by a bull and suffered a concussion. It was a "pretty intense injury, which took six, seven months to recover from," Knoxville says, and it led to a brain hemorrhage and cognitive decline.

"I don't want to go through that again, nor put my family through that again," he says, though ending the franchise was still a "difficult decision."

"I can't do the larger stunts anymore, and I'm still reconciling that. For the large part, that's OK. I've done enough. But part of me is still having trouble with that. … It's like putting to rest a side of you. It was time, but it's tough."

In "Best and Last," Knoxville largely takes a back seat and allows others to handle most of the new stunts, often serving as more of a master of ceremonies. After years of putting himself on the line, he found it challenging.

"I felt like half of me in this film, and I didn't like it," he says. "It's tough to sit back and host while everyone else is having fun."

With Knoxville stepping back, Steve-O came into the final movie ready to "be gnarlier than ever," and he doesn't disappoint. His new stunts in "Best and Last" include a disgusting game involving laxatives that had him "violently barfing," as well as a bit where he gets a prostate exam from a robot. Both gave him a chance to preach about prioritizing prostate health and colonoscopies, a potentially lifesaving message for fans who have grown up with the franchise.

"It's such a great opportunity … to frame this art in the context of middle age," he says. "We're at an age where cancer screening is so important."

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While filming, Steve-O says, he didn't have "the ability to really feel sad about it being the end because I'm so grateful that we got to do it at all." Plus, he already thought "Jackass Forever" would be the last movie, so this one was an "unexpected bonus."

But the significance of that final day on set, which was also the last scene in the film, wasn't lost on him.

"That day had a heaviness," he remembers. "There were a lot of tears. There were a lot of hugs. There was a lot of gratitude."

The older footage featured in "Best and Last" includes previously cut bits considered too reckless to show back in the day, including a shocking scene of Knoxville shooting himself in the chest with a real gun while wearing a bulletproof vest. A version of the stunt in which he tested self-defense equipment on himself appeared in the first episode of the MTV show.

"I didn't realize I had just changed my life," Knoxville says, noting there's a part in the footage when you can see him realize he was on to something with the idea that led to "Jackass." "That moment touches me."

That's just one of numerous "Jackass" stunts that could have easily had fatal consequences if all didn't go according to plan. In another older bit in "Best and Last," a police officer pulls a gun on Knoxville while he's pretending to be an escaped prisoner at a hardware store. The cop later told him she was prepared to "put a bullet in my ear" if he had moved an inch.

"I, and we, have been very lucky," he acknowledges.

Knoxville went through a "myriad" of emotions revisiting the franchise's highlights for the film, including scenes with late "Jackass" cast member Ryan Dunn, who died in a car crash in 2011.

"Sometimes you'll watch it, and you're just in awe of how funny and at the same time sweet he was and hilariously grumpy he was," Knoxville says. "And then you miss him, and that hits you right in the face and the heart."

For Steve-O, looking back through the series' best moments made him reflect on one of its core appeals: Despite how inappropriate and vile "Jackass" has always been, as a franchise built around a group of friends making one another laugh, it's also surprisingly wholesome.

"There's nothing hateful," he says. "There's nothing mean-spirited. I think that's why it's aged so well, and why it endured for as long as it did."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O talk end of 'Jackass' with 'Best and Last'

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