Stephen Gilchrist Glover (born June 13, 1974), known professionally as Steve-O, is an American stunt performer, comedian, television personality, and podcaster. He rose to fame in the early 2000s as a cast member of the MTV reality slapstick comedy series Jackass, which showcased dangerous stunts and pranks and led to a successful film franchise (2002-2026).
Following the success of Jackass, Steve-O appeared in numerous spin-offs, including Wildboyz and Dr. Steve-O, and embarked on comedy tours that mixed stand-up with stunt performances. He released a memoir, Professional Idiot (2011), and later built a following through his YouTube channel and podcast Steve-O's Wild Ride! which he began in 2020. As of 2026 Steve-O has 7.02 million subscribers on YouTube.
Steve-O has been open about his struggles with substance abuse, which led to several legal and health issues in the mid-2000s. After an intervention by his Jackass co-stars in March 2008, he entered treatment and is now an advocate for recovery and animal rights.
Born in Wimbledon, London, to a Canadian mother and American father, Steve-O holds Canadian, British, and American citizenships.
Stephen Gilchrist Glover was born on June 13, 1974 in London to Donna Gay Glover (née Wauthier; 1947–2003), a Canadian; and Richard Edward "Ted" Glover (born 1943), an American business executive. He is of English ancestry on his father's side. He has one older sister, Cindy.
When he was six months old, the family moved to Brazil, where his father worked as president of Pepsi-Cola's South American division. Glover later recalled that his first words were spoken in Portuguese, and that the family's frequent relocations disrupted his early schooling. They subsequently lived in Venezuela, where he learned Spanish.
By age four, the family had returned to the United States, settling in Darien, Connecticut, and later moving to Miami, Florida. At age nine, the family relocated to London, then to Toronto when he was twelve, and back to London again the following year. He attended the American School in London.
At sixteen, Glover began using drugs such as LSD and cannabis, and later said that he "narrowly graduated" with his high school diploma in 1992. He enrolled at the University of Miami's School of Communication, where he began using the stage name "Steve-O", but left during his sophomore year in November 1993.
After leaving Miami, Glover lived without permanent housing and often stayed with friends. During this period, he filmed his own stunts, including a 1995 jump from a balcony that resulted in multiple injuries, among them broken teeth, a fractured cheekbone, and a concussion.
In 1997, after further struggles with substance use and minor arrests, he was accepted into the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in Sarasota, Florida, graduating in 1997.
After completing his training at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in 1997, Steve-O was not selected to join the circus. He instead worked as a clown at a circus based at the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop flea market and performed on cruise ships for Royal Caribbean International. During this period, he filmed his own stunts and performances, often distributing VHS tapes of his work to promote himself.
In the late 1990s, some of these recordings reached filmmaker Jeff Tremaine, who was developing a stunt-based television project for MTV. Tremaine recruited Steve-O to join the ensemble cast of Jackass, which premiered in 2000. The series, which showcased dangerous stunts and pranks performed by Steve-O and other cast members, quickly became a cultural phenomenon.
Following the show's success, MTV released seven films based on the series: Jackass: The Movie (2002), Jackass Number Two (2006), the direct-to-video Jackass 2.5 (2007), Jackass 3D (2010), the direct-to-video Jackass 3.5 (2011), Jackass Forever (2022), and Jackass 4.5 (2022), and Jackass: Best and Last (2026) The theatrical installments — Jackass: The Movie, Jackass Number Two, Jackass 3D, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (2013), and Jackass Forever — were box-office successes.
In 2001, Steve-O released Don't Try This at Home on DVD, which contained material MTV censored. It went on to sell 140,000 copies. He toured promoting the DVD doing stunts, which was filmed and released as Don't Try This at Home Volume 2: The Tour.
On July 31, 2002, Steve-O was arrested on obscenity and assault charges for stapling his scrotum to his leg, and for being a principal to a second-degree battery, during a performance at a nightclub in Houma, Louisiana on July 11, 2002. After several delays, in March 2003 Steve-O made a deal with Louisiana prosecutors placing him on supervised probation for one year, requiring him to make a charitable donation of $5,000 to a shelter for battered women and children and forbidding him from ever performing in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana again.
In 2003, Steve-O toured Europe with Bam Margera, a friend and co-star of Jackass. On May 22, 2003, Steve-O was arrested and jailed while in Sweden due to footage of him swallowing a condom containing cannabis to get it past authorities while flying on a plane. He then regurgitated it live on stage, which he showed in his DVD Steve-O: Out on Bail (aka Don't Try This at Home – The Steve-O Video Vol. 3: Out on Bail). Steve-O reached a deal with the Swedish prosecutors and was released on May 27, 2003, after paying a fine of 45,000 kronor (equal to about US$5,800 at the time).
As part of the plea bargain, Steve-O admitted to possessing one ecstasy tablet and five grams of marijuana, although he claimed he had no knowledge of where the ecstasy came from. The Swedish arrest was included in the third installment of the DVD series titled Steve-O: Out on Bail. Two months later on July 19, 2003, Steve-O was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct for urinating on potato chips in public during a Lollapalooza tour concert in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania. Steve-O claimed he was kicked off the tour by Lollapalooza producers because of the incident.
After Jackass ended, Steve-O co-starred with Chris Pontius on MTV's Wildboyz, which lasted four seasons from 2003 until 2006. The two performed stunts and acts with animals, often putting themselves in situations for which they were not trained.