If you've noticed that Steve-O has been up to quite a bit of mischief over the past few months, it's because… Donkey The alumnus has been filming a series of stunts for his upcoming live tour, The Super Dummy Tour. But, as he himself tells it, Consequence In a recent interview, one of his most difficult experiences came about because of a trick he… No It happened — her plan was to get breast implants for a short period of time.
He nearly “It happened, to be clear. “I had surgery at 10 o’clock,” he says. “The surgery was supposed to happen at eight in the morning. And at 10 o’clock the night before, I got a call saying that the anesthesiologist backed out, because he found out that I had done it as a sham. And that set off a chain reaction where the doctor didn’t want to be associated with it anymore and they were having trouble finding another surgical center to do it.”
At the time, he says, this was considered merely a setback and the idea was not dead yet. “They were talking about going to another county and smuggling me in at six in the morning and they urged me to say it had happened in Mexico.”
But fate intervened, he says. “On the day I was due to have the operation, I was at the checkout at the supermarket and the person ringing up my purchase was obviously transgender, and I thought it was a sign from the universe. So I asked the transgender person if I could ask them something and I had a conversation with this person that had a profound impact on me.”
Before that, Steve-O hadn't felt the need to tell anyone about the idea because “I knew what my motivation was, I knew what my intention was and it wasn't to hurt anyone. I was just trying to get a laugh. I'd done a bunch of workshop shows to test out material and a number of trans people came up to me after shows to express their support.” [the stunt]”And I think some people would have been okay with it and some people wouldn't. It would have been a mix of good and bad.”
However, she confirms that before her scheduled surgery date, “I didn’t really have any specific meetings or conversations with trans people, because I didn’t really feel like I needed to. But I feel like the universe put this encounter in front of me, and ultimately I decided that the universe had intervened.”
Here’s one of the things Steve-O had planned to do after getting breast implants that he felt was going to be “really fun”: “I would wax my entire body, airbrush all my tattoos off, and I literally lost 20 pounds to get really skinny and petite. So I would be hairless, tattoo-free, in a pink bikini top and Daisy Duke shorts, and a motorcycle helmet covering my entire face and head.”
In that set, he says, “I was riding a pink Vespa around the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in full costume, where no one could tell who I was. And the plan I had was to film with hidden cameras as I approached large groups of bikers, who would presumably be watching me. And I would walk up, take off my helmet and say, ‘Yeah, dude,’ and get this crazy reaction, which, predictably, would be controversial.”
The person Steve-O spoke to said that “my sense of it being the ultimate statement of bodily autonomy, me saying that my body, my choice… That part was fine. But the part where I deliberately went out to trick people into thinking I was a woman and then tricked them, and then somehow celebrated the idea of hatred towards [trans people] —That was one thing.”
Additionally, the person Steve-O spoke to “described not being allowed to use the bathroom at their workplace, that there were about 28 states in the country that would arrest them for having an ID that said they were women, that there were politicians making concerted efforts to put them in internment camps. It was really heartbreaking the level of oppression that was described.”
Steve-O says: “Looking at it that way, I thought about it in a way I hadn’t thought about it before, which was like, wow, maybe it’s not all fun and games, especially the jokes. I would have considered it would be better to film if I had gotten beaten up at the motorcycle rally. And having that mindset was a huge mistake, because ultimately it would be an exercise in celebrating violence against trans people. At least that’s how some people would interpret it, and when they put it to me like that, I thought, wow, maybe I was wrong about that.”
In addition to the stunt at the motorcycle rally, Steve-O says he also had plans to “do hidden camera pranks at strip clubs. And I was very serious about my pole dancing training. I was doing some very serious inverted pole dancing stunts.”
During the tour, footage of her pole dancing training will be shown, along with images from her medical office: “There are some pretty shocking things,” she says. And she will explain to the public why she ended up not doing it: “I don’t really avoid the subject, I explain that I felt the universe intervened in my favor.”
Though he seems to be at peace with the decision not to do the stunt, Steve-O admits that “it was hard for me. Now that I think about it, I’m very grateful that it didn’t happen. I’m very glad I didn’t do it. But that didn’t make it any easier, because I was very vocal about my plans to do it and I’ve never been the kind of artist that says I was going to do something and then doesn’t do it. That’s what got me into trouble, not keeping my word.”
That said, he continues, he feels the fact that the stunt didn't happen “is a good thing. The show still has a ton of really good comedy from that whole episode. And the degree to which I was willing to go through with it is hilarious in itself.”
Steve-O continues: “I think it’s a very valuable quality to be able to admit when you’re wrong.”
For more information about the tour, including when it might arrive in your city, Visit Steve-O's official site. For more information on what can We hope to see you during the next Super Dummy Tour, we will return to Consequence soon.
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