The evolution of Steve-O, where every act is his last

Steve-O dropped out of college in 1993. He told everyone his plan was to become a famous stuntman with his home video camera. He remembers people feeling genuinely sorry for him. To be fair, he wasn’t even sure it would work or that he’d be successful, in the least, he just wanted to amass enough crazy footage so he’d have a legacy to outlive him when he, “Inevitably died young, having failed at life,” he said.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. Steve-O, born Stephen Glover, has spent his life treating every act as if it’s his last. His on-screen bits were shocking and his off-screen antics infamous, culminating in an intervention by Johnny Knoxville and his Jackass family in 2008 and stays in rehab.

So it’s as much a surprise to him as anyone that almost 30 years after making that wild proclamation, not only is he alive and “still getting away with it,” but he is actually thriving and moving up in the world.

At 47, Steve-O — the man who walked on a tightrope over an alligator pit with raw meat in his underwear, snorted lines of wasabi and fish-hooked his own cheek on camera —- is nearly 14 years sober with a successful stand-up comedy career, a podcast, a dog, a fiancé, a book of wisdom on the way, “A Hard Kick in the Nuts: What I Learned from a Lifetime of Terrible Decisions,” and another “ Jackass ” movie in theaters.

“I’m beside myself with gratitude,” he said in a Zoom call from his tour bus. It’s actually an RV, he wants to clarify, but it’s a “fun Class A RV” wrapped with “obnoxious” Steve-O art that’s causing a bit of a stir with passersby trying to take photos.

But he likes it. He is, he knows, a bit of an “attention whore.”

“I say that in a bit of a self-deprecating way, but it’s true,” he said. “At my core, I’m...