Steve-O has opened up about his contract dispute while negotiating pay for Jackass Forever, which led to a short-lived rift between him and his co-star Johnny Knoxville.
In a brief interview with MMA Junkie last year, Steve-O went public about the contract dispute and cast doubt on whether he’d return for the fourth film. As Variety reports, the comedian and podcast host said that he asked for more money before signing a contract, but he didn’t handle the situation well.
“I was in disbelief when I learned that Knoxville was trying to make a fourth Jackass movie after an entire decade of inactivity with the Jackass brand. The contracts have never been fun but this time around, it was even less fun,” said Steve-O, 47. “I felt that over the last 10 years that I’d really worked extremely hard to build momentum for myself as a brand in my own right. I wanted to retroactively stick up for myself. Over the course of Jackass, I had never so much as countered. I never pushed back. I built myself up. I deserved more now because I worked for more. When my entertainment attorney says ‘OK, go for it,’ then I’m going to go for it.”
He stuck his ground in regards to the dispute, but his decision to “blurt shit out” during interviews “pissed off Knoxville.” He said it sparked “a little rift” between him and his co-star. “My lawyer finally called me up and said, ‘Hey, take it, dude. This is going to get ugly,’” he continued. “It might have gone up the smallest fraction of a number. But it did not go up in any sense for me to call it a win.”
Looking back on the situation, he said, “I don’t even feel bad about it, because I handled it poorly and I’ll own it.” The two were able to patch things up after, and he even called up Knoxville to admit it could have gone better. “I said, ‘Hey, I want to acknowledge the way I handled the whole contract situation — it was fucking bullshit, man.’ I called to acknowledge it, and just put it out there that I was wrong and wanted to make it right. It was the most healing conversation that he and I had ever had. I felt emotional about it.”
Jackass Forever is set to debut in theaters on Feb. 4.
