Johnny Knoxville Is Finally Being Sued For One Of His Pranks
Pranks are some of the oldest tricks (if you’ll excuse the pun) in the book and tend to go viral on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, and one of the best in the business, Johnny Knoxville, is heading up a new show to capitalize. According to a report by TMZ, the Jackass creator and daredevil’s new series, The Prank Patrol, has gotten him in trouble. One of the subjects of his pranks is fighting back by taking Knoxville to court and suing him for the after-effects of the stunt.
In a description of the incident that led to the lawsuit, the plaintiff, Khalil Khan, answered a bid for a repair job on TaskRabbit, a freelancing website, only to get more than he bargained for. When he responded to the job inquiry, he went to begin the work on an electrical job, only to discover that the lack of electricity killed the owner’s pony. When he went to call the police, the crew went further by showing a tow truck picking up his vehicle and producing white powder.
Eventually, Johnny Knoxville let the man in on the prank and offered him money for his participation, the same way that most shows like Ashton Kutcher‘s Punk’d or Impractical Jokers operate. The gesture wasn’t enough for Khan, though, as he claims the incident wasn’t as funny as Knoxville and the crew believed it was. Khan’s attorney alleges the man was badly shaken and traumatized by the incident, saying he suffers from a lack of sleep, anxiety, and emotional stress.
Johnny Knoxville isn’t a stranger to backlash or criticism, as he has been promoting shock and awe for over two decades since his first episode of Jackass appeared on MTV. The series, which consisted of grown men in a punk rock aesthetic hitting each other in the testicles for laughs and getting more and more extreme with every episode, signaled a shift in entertainment. Of course, he always says not to try this at home, but many believed that the stunts would inspire others to follow suit and be the inspiration for countless injuries, or worse, across the country.
Of course, instead of being canceled and removed from the limelight, Johnny Knoxville used his controversial series to launch his career into more Jackass, and film appearances in movies like Walking Tall with Dwayne Johnson, Dukes of Hazzard with Sean William Scott and Jessica Simpson, and The Last Stand with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Notably, his film The Ringer, which received a lot of backlash and was accused of exploiting the disabled for laughs.
While Johnny Knoxville has escaped cancel culture largely because he believes that Jackass endeavored to use slapstick comedy only to hurt each other, never other people, pranks may offer a different perspective. He has a close group of friends who have built a camaraderie between each other, primarily based on putting each other in harm’s way, and there seems to be an understanding there. But with The Prank Patrol, he is now bringing unsuspecting civilians into his antics, and as he sees with Khalil Khan, he may not be as invincible as he once was.
