Stephen "Steve-O" Gilchrist Glover (b. June 13, 1974) is an English-born American stunt performer and television personality. He is best known as one of the performers on the TV series Jackass and Wildboyz.

Biography

Steve-O was born in Wimbledon, London, England to an American father and a Canadian mother. His family was based in England for many years due to his father's business interests. Steve-O graduated from The American School in London in 1992 before moving to the United States. He briefly attended the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, but dropped out after one year to attend the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College and make videos of his stunts. Though he was not selected to join The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus after graduating Clown College, he did work as a clown in a circus at the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop flea market. While performing in the flea market circus, Steve-O began sending videos of himself to Big Brother Magazine editor and future Jackass director Jeff Tremaine, which led to his involvement in the television series Jackass and its hit movie spin-offs, Jackass: The Movie, Jackass Number Two and Jackass 2.5.

His upcoming album will be titled Hard as a Rock. Another mix-cd released by Steve-O is called The Dumbest Asshole In Hip Hop.

Like fellow Jackass star Bam Margera, Steve-O is also an avid Heavy metal fan. He has a tattoo of an inverted Christian cross on his left shoulder.

In mid 2005, Steve-O launched his own shoe company called Sneaux Shoes. Television commercials promoting the shoe company include such acts as Steve-O jumping into garbage, getting his foot bitten by an alligator and drinking rotten milk. His slogan is "They're darn good shoes."

On July 31, 2002, Steve-O was arrested in Los Angeles on obscenity and assault charges for performing his now infamous stunt, The Butterfly (in which he staples his scrotum to his leg) at the Abyss, a nightclub in Houma, Louisiana, and for being a principal to a second-degree battery, both of which occurred at the nightclub on July 11, 2002. After posting a $150,000 bond in the Los Angeles court system, he was allowed to return to Louisiana where he turned himself in to the local authorities. Steve-O was released from Louisiana's custody with a $35,000 bond on August 14, 2002. The Louisiana courts had originally set his bond at $1.12 million, but it was reduced after he convinced them he wasn't a flight risk. Steve-O was required to return to Los Angeles on August 16, 2002 and prove that he turned himself in to Louisiana authorities.

The arraignment was originally scheduled for September 16, 2002; however Steve-O was granted a continuance extending it until December 16, 2002, and then granted a second continuance extending it to February 10, 2003. Finally on March 24, 2003, Steve-O made a deal with Louisiana prosecutors placing him on supervised probation for one year, requiring him to make a charitable donation of $5,000 to a shelter for battered women and children and forbidding him from ever performing in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana again.

The Abyss nightclub was in danger of losing their liquor license as a result of the events on the night of July 11, 2002. They were allowed to keep it until the trial against Steve-O was complete.

On May 22, 2003 Steve-O was arrested and jailed while in Sweden due to a comment he made during an interview about smuggling drugs into the country, remarking that he swallowed a condom containing cannabis to get it past the authorities. Steve-O reached a plea bargain with the Swedish prosecutors and was released on May 27, 2003 after paying a 45,000 Kronor (about $6,700 dollars) fine. As part of the plea bargain Steve-O admitted to possessing one ecstasy tablet and five grams of marijuana, although he claimed he had no knowledge of where the ecstasy came from.

On July 19, 2003, Steve-O was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct for urinating on potato chips in public during a Lollapalooza tour concert in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania. Steve-O claimed he was kicked off the tour by Lollapalooza producers because of the incident. Steve-O was again seen urinating in public at the March 5, 2006 Key Club Party for the Oscars, urinating on the red carpet outside the club and then stripping off to his "birthday suit."

November 2, 2005 Steve-O was seen by reporters, and later officers in the Los Angeles Police Department, exiting a nightclub with a bag of marijuana. Though the officers confronted Steve-O, they made no attempt to arrest him. The incident was documented on video tape by the reporters and resulted in an administrative investigation within the LAPD to see if the officers at the scene were negligent.

Steve-O attended the "Rock The Bells" Hip-Hop Festival in San Bernardino, California in August 2006 to some controversy. The Concert was headlined by the Wu-Tang Clan and the event was organized as a tribute to clan member Ol' Dirty Bastard. While on stage with the Wu-Tang Clan, Steve-O exclaimed that he shared the same cell with O.D.B, albeit at different times. During the performance, Steve-O got nude, tucked his penis between his legs and performed a back flip. This upset Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon, and he threatened to assault him if he didn't apologize while tempers flared.

On March 9, 2008, Steve-O's friends, including co-star Johnny Knoxville, physically removed him from his house and forced him to check into Thalians Mental Health Center due to ongoing drug abuse problems. Steve-O was placed on a 72 hour psychiatric hold which was later lengthened to 14 days due to an alleged suicide attempt. In a mass e-mail addressed to his friends, Steve-O expressed that he previously had thought that his drug abuse and bipolarity as a "good thing," but that he now realizes that his drug abuse was hurting those he loved most.

On June 4, 2008, Steve-O pleaded guilty to possession to cocaine. He will avoid jail if he successfully completes his treatment program.

On May 3, 2009 mtv premiered a documentary titled Steve-0: Demise and Rise which was a documentary about how his life was effected by the use of drugs and alcohol. The show featured home- made video footage of steve using drugs and vandalizing his apartment on several occaisions for several different reasons.

At the end of the show, Steve made a statement saying that this show was not produced to declare himself clean or that he would never get back into drugs. It was produced to document his darkest days and how he was able to recover from this drug using episode. To reassure the audience one thing he said on the show was this is in now way me saying that I will never go back into drugs, I mean I could get loaded tomorrow but that wasn't the point of this show. This message was replayed at the end of the show.

This Steve-O Biography Page is Copyright © 2004 - 2009 Chuck Ayoub