We love the cast of Jackass, but sweet fucking Jesus, those guys put themselves in the kind of harm’s way that makes it difficult to feel sympathetic when they get hurt. Only back in July, a guest-star on the upcoming fourth film in the franchise, Jackass Forever, had to be rushed to the hospital after getting bitten by a shark — because he was wakeboarding in shark-infested waters. Now, new research shows that this kind of behavior is not only dangerous but costly, as the Jackass cast’s medical bills have apparently come out somewhere around $24 million.
As reported by Consequence Of Sound, a study by the Nova Legal Funding examined 79 injuries undertaken by seven longtime members of Jackass‘ cast: Johnny Knoxville, Chris Pontius, Ehren McGhehey, Steve-O, Dave England, Jason ‘Wee-man’ Acuña, and Preston Lacy. The injuries range from broken bones to alligator bites, but from those six amateur stuntmen alone, the medical tab is approximately $24,263,000. Take into account the franchise’s many stunt performers, guest stars, and unreported injuries, and the total bill is estimated to be more like $38 million.
Leading the way in terms of expensive care is, unsurprisingly, Johnny Knoxville, whose total tab comes in at about $8,663,000. It’s Knoxville who has the alligator bite in his corner (costing him approximately $100,000). The real pricey treatment, though, was the $2.5 million worth of care for a brain hemorrhage he suffered while filming the upcoming Jackass Forever. That said, he’s racked up $4 million in expenses over the course of 16 concussions, $300K for a broken ankle, and $120K for a “crotch injury,” which might have come from the infamous landmine scene in Jackass 2.
Ehren McGhehey has second highest medical expenditure of the group, coming in at $7,380,000 million; among his bills are $2.7 million for breaking his neck three times and another $1.2M to fix four broken noses. Steve-O clocks in at third with $5,820,000, with $1.75M expense for a recently fractured skull and skin grafts on 15% of his body at the cost of $900K giving him a leg up among many of his comrades.
Here are some visual breakdowns via Nova Legal Funding:
So there you have it. If you want to destroy your body for a sake of big-ass laffs, make sure you have a powerful studio behind you.
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Words by Chris Krovatin
