Steve-O: Why I thought Henry Rollins was going to kick my ass

Steve-O on Jackass, Rollins and off-road tattoos
(Image credit: Michael Schwartz\/WireImage)

While I was on tour in late 2001, I met a young woman who I had a lot of sex with. She once shared with me that she’d had a relationship with Henry Rollins. I just pounced on that; I thought it was hilarious. The most important question to me was, “Did he grunt when he was having sex with you?” I really wanted to know.

I then went on The Howard Stern Show with her in early 2002 and it was an outrageous appearance. I was telling Howard Stern about Rollins’ relationship with this girl and kind of making light of it all. I was totally out of control at that time as well. I was completely out of my mind on drugs… particularly cocaine, but also a lot of ketamine too.

Now, when we had the idea for the ‘Off-Road Tattoo’ skit in the first Jackass movie [2002], it was supposed to be Nikki Sixx from Mötley Crüe driving the Hummer. I’d met Mötley Crüe when I was 13-years-old and on the day when we went out into the desert to film the scene I was sitting there with a framed photo of me and Nikki from 1987, when I met the band when I was a kid. I was snorting line after line of cocaine off this picture frame, which I did quite regularly, and I was all fucked up on coke. Then this black SUV rolls up and the guys told me, “There’s your hero. Nikki Sixx has arrived. Now go up to the car and greet him.”

I was all excited thinking I was about to go and meet Nikki Sixx, and then when the door opened Henry Rollins popped out. I just froze in fear thinking that the whole plan was a double-cross and that I was about to have my fucking ass kicked by Henry for the whole situation with this girl and talking shit about him on The Howard Stern Show.

As it turned out, Henry was as nice as could be. I was already a fan of his but I became a much bigger fan of his over the course of that day. It seems like we just jumped in and went for a ride but there was actually a lot more to that whole experience. He broke the Hummer driving it on this moto-cross track and I got a great tattoo [by director Jeff Tremaine].

Many years later, when I was working on my book [Professional Idiot: A Memoir], the guy who was helping me [David Peisner] reached out and interviewed Henry. He told him this whole story from front to finish. His response was something like, “If I went and beat up everyone who talked badly about me then I’d be quite sore.” He had this great laid back attitude about not getting riled up, and once again, my respect for him went up even higher. Henry Rollins is just a fucking impressive guy, man.

Steve-O’s End Of The World Tour 2016 tour starts on November 24 in Dublin. He was speaking to Matt Stocks.