Steve-O only made $1,500 for Season 1 of “Jackass.”
The reality star revealed the “comic” sum to Playboy in an interview published Tuesday, clarifying that he was not paid per episode.
Instead, the stuntman was paid for each bite.
“After five days of filming I was all beat up, hungover, had been bitten by a shark and I pulled out a piece of paper to write down what I really felt should be on the show,” Steve-O, 52, explained to the broadcast.
“At the top I wrote ‘Goldfish,’ and I thought, while I’m at it, I might as well put what I expect to be paid,” he continued. “Next to ‘Goldfish’ I literally wrote $200.”
He walked away from that experience with a “small” scar and $500.
“When it was all said and done, after taxes, I got paid less than $1,500 for the entire first season of ‘Jackass,'” the “Wildboyz” alum said, noting that his “sister kicked (him) out of the house … before the show” aired.
“I was broke, unemployed and homeless — and a star on this big MTV show,” Steve-O added.
Despite his life being “black and white, completely different from one day to the next”, he said that “one of the first things (he) learned about fame” is that “it comes a lot easier than fortune.”
Before “Jackass,” Steve-O went to Ringling Bros. Clown College because he had “been homeless for three years” as a stuntman and couldn’t “find anything”.
He recalled thinking that if he became “a trained circus professional,” people would “take (him) more seriously” in the field.
Steve-O jokingly called himself “the only guy who goes to Clown College to seek legitimacy.”
“Jackass” aired for three seasons between 2000 and 2001, starring Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera and more stars, followed by several movies and spinoffs.
The franchise concludes with “Jackass: Best and Last,” which comes out Friday — and Steve-O confirmed that it’s “100 percent the end.”
“That’s what this movie is … a last hurray for all of us to come together and do what we have in us to do,” he said Tuesday.
