Johnny Knoxville discusses getting brain damage from Jackass Forever stunt
“No one in my family is happy with the stunts," Knoxville admitted to Howard Stern in a recent interview
The human brain is a sack of wet, delicate tissue that manages to do insanely complicated work (“breathing,” “feeling,” “forming definitive rankings of Marvel movies”) in a decidedly harsh environment, with little more protection than a cushion of liquid, a thin layer of bone, and whatever common sense it can impart to the human body saddled with carrying it around. It is not, on the whole, designed for close-up encounters with a charging bull.
Jackass Forever star Johnny Knoxville has been significantly harder on his brain than most people, having suffered a reported 16 concussions across his long career of literally self-destructive stunts. But a bull-based run-in on the set of Jackass Forever was apparently a breaking point, per an interview he gave to Howard Stern this week. During the conversation, Knoxville described in detail the brain hemorrhage, and subsequent drop in cognitive ability, that he suffered after the hit.