Over the course of his hazardous formative years, Steve-O encountered a large degree of difficulty in getting public exposure for his unique talents. Basically no one with any amount of money wanted to be left holding the bag of liability for Steve-O’s charred and broken body if one of his cockamamie stunts went awry.

Backtracking in history a bit, Steve-O briefly attended the University of Miami before learning he wasn’t cut out for the academic college life and more suited to jumping off the city’s rooftops and bridges. Steve-O then tried to make it as a stuntman, but with that career objective going nowhere fast he instead opted to enroll in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College—mainly with the intent to bring a sense of legitimacy to his swelling cache of idiotic home video footage.

Indefatigable in most any and all respects, Steve-O sent out his self-produced videos to anyone he thought might watch them—namely those within the skateboard industry, where he soon found a halfway house for his stunts. However, following a haphazard if not fateful encounter with the Big Brother magazine crew in 1999 (this was actually the second run-in, considering Dimitry Elyashkevich first witnessed O in 1997, when he lost a few layers of his face following a “money ball” gone bad thanks to pro skateboarder Kris Markovich), Steve-O took to carpet bombing Jeff Tremaine with phone calls and footage after hearing about a little project called jackass that he and Johnny Knoxville were slinging around the entertainment industry.

Steve-O, who at the time was slumming it as a clown in a flea market circus show, ultimately secured a top spot on the cast after flopping around in elephant poo and regurgitating a live goldfish during an early filming excursion to Florida for the show’s first season in 2000. Whenever MTV rejected his more dangerous ideas for jackass, Steve-O slated them for production on his own “Too Hot For TV” video series or performed them live on-stage during his wildly successful “Don’t Try This At Home” tours.

After securing a spotlight in Hollywood for his skills, Steve-O time and time again added the crowning touch to his many stunts and antics—the majority of which boiled down to going where no other man would ever want to—sending audiences either scrambling for buckets in revulsion or inviting him into their bedrooms.

In the process of promoting his various projects over the years, be it jackass, Wildboyz, Dr. Steve-O, etc., Steve-O landed a number of high profile appearances on the talk show circuit, including now infamous spots on Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla, and Howard Stern—a striking contrast to his years spent wallowing in obscurity with only the pipe dream of living a rock ‘n’ roll Sunset Strip lifestyle.

Unfortunately, Steve-O did embrace this lifestyle in his typical all or nothing manner and he rode it straight down to rock bottom amid a hail of drugs, alcohol, gangsta-rap, rad emails, and paparazzi, right up until his friends stepped in, turned the camera off, and admitted him to a local hospital where he was placed under a “5150 hold” in March 2008.

Since that time, Steve-O has moved into a sober living home, where he has remained clean and serene for over one year now. His most recent projects include an appearance on ABC’s Dancing With The Stars and the development of a special about his harrowing demise and subsequent rise.