One Wild Boy

In this one we grill the one and only Steve-O, both literally and figuratively. In the conversation we spoke with the groundbreaking prankster about anything and everything, including the three Ts—tattoos, tranquilizers and turtles

-  Nick Fierro

“We did this spinal tap thing two days before duct taping me to that billboard in Hollywood. There was no good reason to load up my week like that. I could have had something really terrible happen with this four inch needle going into my spine, and then two days later I’d likely be in jail for duct taping myself to a billboard.”

Yeah, well… How did you expect an interview with Steve-O to begin?

A few months back, on a sunny day in an undisclosed backyard in California, Stephen “Steve-O” Glover, accompanied by a cameraman, his producer Scott and an unnamed medical professional disguised as a clown, set out to do the unthinkable—insert a four inch needle into his spine, inject him with enough chemicals to paralyze his legs, and before the chemicals took effect, set him off on a sprint while wearing a helmet camera. It went slightly better than expected.

“I was completely paralyzed for 45 minutes,” Steve-O recalls. “I was under the impression that it would immobilize me from the waist down, but once I collapsed mid run I couldn’t feel anything all the way up to my neck.”

Not one to miss an opportunity for never-before-seen footage, Steve-O kept the camera rolling. It’s not like he really had a choice.

“While I was laying there, fucking miserable, everyone’s just shooting up my legs with paintballs, point blank,” he says. “I couldn’t feel anything. It looked like they were just shooting a dead snake. They were holding a lighter to my foot, no reaction. They even zapped my leg with a stun gun.”

What could be considered a waking nightmare for most stood out as something special to Steve-O, something that he had been chasing for a long, long time.