Steve graduated from Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in 1997. He says the program was more like boot camp than college. Out of 2000 applicants, only 33 were accepted and Steve-O was one of them. However, after graduation, 10 were selected for the circus and this didn't include him. So he went back home to Albuquerque, New Mexico to film himself doing dangerous and stupid stunts for submission to skateboarding companies. Steve-O's relationship with Big Brother Magazine began in 1997 when they ran a side-bar article about him catching his face on fire when their Big Brother tour came through Albuquerque. In 1999 he moved from New Mexico to Florida. For six months he worked as a performer on Royal Carribean Cruise Lines and was then offered a job at the Hanneford Family Circus as a clown. During this time he was featured in several more issues of Big Brother Magazine and even filmed a part for the Big Brother video "Boob". This is when he became involved with Jackass. He says he did all his filming for the first season of Jackass within three days.


Was never a clown for Ringling Brothers, but did graduate from Clown College in 1997. Says the first concert he ever went to was Twisted Sister and the first album he ever owned was Michael 'Jackson's Thriller.' Has a sister, Cindy. His father holds a high-level executive position with the Nabisco Corp. He has lit his head on fire, swallowed live goldfish and attempted to regurgitate them alive, stapled his scrotum to his thigh, let the cast throw darts in his buttocks and carved an upside down cross in his shoulder with a knife followed by rubbing ink into the wound. On July 18, 2006, he became a late contestant on the British reality show "Celebrity Love Island" (2005) broadcast on ITV from Fiji in an effort to boost ratings. Despite stating he had stopped drinking, he asked for beer while on the show, and on July 19, 2006, he abruptly left because he was not allowed the beer and chocolate that he requested. Before he got his big break in "Jackass" (2000), he did many stunts in front of his friends at parties. One of the stunts involved him lighting his hair on fire and then doing a back flip. While doing this stunt something went wrong and he burnt all the skin on his face off. He had to wear a face mask for a month.