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Johnny Knoxville First Time Meeting Hunter S. Thompson

21 Jan 2026 · 2 min

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1:42

A short YouTube interview excerpt where Johnny Knoxville recalls early influences and a pivotal career moment: at 14 he toured with his singer cousin Roger Allen Waite and did a radio show, which sparked a desire for adventure and free thinking; at ~18–19 he read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which further opened his mind; in his late 20s he wrote and filmed a self-defense/stunt piece for Big Brother/Jackass—testing tasers, stun guns, pepper spray and shooting himself while wearing a bulletproof vest—and sent it to Hunter S. Thompson, who called him, producing a strong rush of excitement.

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I didn't know people lived like that, you know, I was 14, I was in a bar with my older cousin, Roger Allen Waite. He's a singer. I do a radio show with him. And he gave me on the road and it just blew me away. And it just gave me this crazy desire to leave. The adventure and just the vastness of the world and opportunity and just how free they were in free thinking. Yeah, there's this. And it opened my mind a lot. And then when I, I think I was around 18 or 19 when I read Fear and Loathing Las Vegas and that book, I didn't know people could write like that. That opened my mind up even more. Those books were very important to me. And then eventually getting to meet Hunter. Well, at first I, I, I knew a guy who knew him and I, I had done, I guess I was in late 20s, 27, and I had written a thing for Big Brother magazine, a thing on self defense equipment. So I tested a bunch of shit on myself. It was in one of the jackasses. I was taser gun, stun gun, pepper spray. And then I shot myself in the chest with a bulletproof vest and that tape. I was like, oh, Hunter might like this. And so I had my friend send it to him and he called me and I mean, I like the rush of blood that went through me and the excitement. That was a really big moment.