The Untold Truth Of Chris Pontius
While he might not get as much attention as the rest of the "Jackass" crew, Chris Pontius is in many ways the most interesting. Certainly, he seems to be the most liked, given how many of his co-stars' projects he's been a part of. He's also the most relatable in a lot of ways. Pontius doesn't have Knoxville's movie-star looks, Steve-O's circus performer agilities (or pain threshold), or former star Bam Margera's history as a legitimate skating star (though Pontius did get his start as an up-and-coming skater). But what Pontius does have is a lot of heart.
Pontius also has an infectious comedic side, and he didn't have to get shot or pierced to get on the show, as his main gag at first was simply taking off his clothes. And it should be added that he wasn't stripping down as Party Boy to show off his abs — Pontius has long been comfortably rocking his dad bod adjacent. Despite what some might call a childish sense of humor and goofy demeanor, behind the smiling, Pontius is a man full of depth and determination. One who has lived out his lifelong ambition of being paid to travel and have fun and seems to be carving out his own version of the American dream.
Pontius was an OG Big Brother guy
"Big Brother" is to "Jackass" what the National Lampoon magazine is to its better-known film classics like "Caddyshack," "Animal House," and "Vacation." The subversive skate magazine was run by people like eventual "Jackass" ringmaster Jeff Tremaine and videographer Spike Jonze, and it brought together the original core crew. Knoxville shot himself with a gun for an article, Jason "Wee Man" Acuña worked there, and Chris Pontius was first interviewed by the magazine in 1992 as a young skater and quickly became more than just a one-time feature (via The Daily Dot).
Pontius would go on to write for the magazine for a while. His talents obviously extended beyond his skating career since he even starred in some of their movies, which were full-on proto-"Jackass" extravaganzas. He eventually ended up getting fired by Big Brother, but obviously, when the magazine's video team started looking at making a show for MTV, his former colleagues decided he had something they were looking for. Which was, again, a willingness to parade around the world in a thong or less.
He was in Bam Margera's CKY3
The "Jackass" crew came together from a couple of sources, but the driving force was Big Brother. Jeff Tremaine and Spike Jonze pitched the idea for the show off the back of what they'd done with the magazine's videos. The other big media property, though, was pro skater Bam Margera's homemade, often-grainy "CKY" videos. Yet after they all met, Chris Pontius was pretty much the only one to head back and jump into one of Bam's movies (Johnny Knoxville appears, too), appearing in "CKY 3."
Many of the rest of the team would appear in Bam's "Jackass" spinoff "Viva la Bam," but here's Pontius (pictured above), the sole Big Brother dude to also join Bam's "CKY" flicks, walking into a busy plaza wearing a hoodie and nothing else. He literally lets everything below the waist hang out (and yes, this is Pontius, you can see his face when he turns around, but that picture wouldn't be acceptable on most websites given the below-the-waist male frontal nudity).
Pontius appears in projects from many of the "Jackass" crew, which may be a testament not just to how well-liked he is but also to how cool he is with joining other people and their individual adventures.
His first nude public appearance was (underage) in Big Brother
As Chris Pontius told The Hollywood Reporter, he was "nude and in Big Brother before I was even 18." As Steve-O noted, "This is a magazine that was targeted toward kids." Although this is actually against the law, somehow, no legal hammers came down. From day one, though, Pontius felt comfortable being in as little clothes as possible in front of the camera.
Pontius' first big character was named "Party Boy," who would enter a place, tear off his clothes, and dance around in just a thong (the show was on MTV, so he couldn't go au naturel). There was even a "Jackass" skit where he does a nude photoshoot hoping to get into "Playgirl." On a show where everybody hurts themselves in a very real way, it's a testament to Pontius' natural animal magnetism that he made his bones by simply disrobing.
Pontius chased a porch pirate
You might think the idea of porch pirating — stealing packages off somebody else's porch — is a "Jackass" thing, but you'd be wrong. The crew hurt themselves but never anybody else and would never consider it funny to steal from the average homeowner. And given how hardcore these guys are, they'd definitely be the wrong ones to target — especially the savage Chris Pontius.
He recently landed in the news when footage from his front door caught a guy stealing a package for his wife. As the guy walked off with the box, Pontius ran out the door and took off after him. He then posted the footage to his Instagram and made a big report. He was prescient enough to catch footage of the guy's car and info on his way out, which is pretty impressive. It sounds like Pontius didn't manage to find the guy, though, because if he had, there probably would have been a fight.
He's a brawler
It's tough to imagine Chris Pontius, the constantly-smiling-and-laughing member of the "Jackass" family, being a fighter. But apparently, he's a bit of a fighter. In his interview on Steve-O's podcast, Pontius details a few of his fights. He explains how occasionally, his friends would start a fight, only to leave him holding the bag and having to take on eight guys. In a famous "Jackass" skit where he dresses as the devil and campaigns to keep God out of California, a passerby punches him, and Pontius is completely unfazed.
He also says, "You get tough by losing fights." This is some old-school wisdom that comes from the fact that Chris Pontius admits he has been in quite a few fights. Apparently, there was even a situation where Pontius and Steve-O passed out eggs to an audience and told them to launch them at the band Electric Six (via Contactmusic.com). The band didn't appreciate it and allegedly threw a beer at Steve-O and his date. Pontius then put on a wrestling singlet and ran to their trailer, challenging them to a fight. When the band continued hiding in their trailer, he punched in a window until security came.
Pontius adds in the podcast that where he grew up, a person is judged based on his skill with his fists, which isn't something you'd associate with an idyllic Southern California hamlet.
He lived in a Toyota Tacoma for a while
There's a pretty legendary episode of MTV's "Cribs" in which Chris Pontius tours the audience around his "house": a Toyota Tacoma. It has to be at the top of the list of all-time hilarious "Cribs" segments as Pontius walks the camera through the vehicle, eventually exploring the bed, where he goes through all his g-strings and costumes.
In his interview on Steve-O's podcast, Pontius discusses the fact that he was traveling so much back then and always had so many couches he could sleep on that he was homeless by choice. Steve-O reveals that he was, too, but he gave the life up before Pontius did (Steve-O explains it was because he needed a home where he could indulge his cocaine addiction).
So how long did Chris essentially live out of a Toyota Tacoma? According to Party Boy himself, he was homeless for eight years.
Bullet ant glove was the most painful stunt
Chris Pontius' "Pontius the Barbarian" skit involves him getting stung by a scorpion around his mouth. In another skit, Pontius gets bitten on his member by a snake. Yet Pontius says that the worst pain was from ants.
In "Wildboyz," Pontius and Steve-O travel the world mingling with animals and locals, especially dangerous wild animals and exotic tribes. In one episode, Pontius puts on a glove full of bullet ants. This is apparently a standard practice of the Amazon tribe they were visiting, where they test the manhood of their young men by forcing them to wear this glove.
As Pontius explains in his interview with the San Luis Obispo Tribune, "That was the worst pain I've had in my life. ... It was 18 hours nonstop of the worst pain ever. I think chopping my arm off would have hurt way less."
His animal obsession led to Wildboyz
"Wildboyz" is a nature show unlike any other, combining the appreciation of wild animals with the type of insane stunts that made Pontius, Steve-O, and the "Jackass" crew famous. From swimming with great whites to playing with fer-de-lance snakes (and the previously mentioned ant glove), it is equal parts educational and nuts. It is also the realization of one of Chris Pontius' boyhood dreams.
As he says in the Steve-O podcast, Pontius grew up loving the series "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom." He and Steve-O discuss how they'd bonded during "Jackass" and wanted to do a project together, so when the stunt show ended, they, Jeff Tremaine, and a few other members of the "Jackass" team developed the idea of an animal show done in a way only they could do it.
As The Hollywood Reporter explains, "Wildboyz" also led to making "Jackass 2." "Knoxville joined us for a while," Steve-O explains. "Knoxville says, 'Have the dog bite me and shoot me with the 9mm gun while the dog's biting me.' And Tremaine says to Knoxville, 'Hey, whoa, let's not do this for MTV2. If you have that in you, let's make another movie.'"
He announced the wrong winner at the EMAs as a joke
One other great story Pontius describes on Steve-O's podcast is how he purposely called out the wrong group for an award at 2003's European VMAs. Pontius says he kind of got talked into it, though he fully admits that he went through with the prank because he thought it would be funny. When he opened the envelope to see the winner was Coldplay, he first said the winner was the White Stripes. As they got up to receive their award, Pontius then said he was kidding, and it was Coldplay. This incident is hard to find a video of, leading one online commenter to suggest MTV edited it out of subsequent replays.
In the podcast, Pontius describes how his increased celebrity and the responsibilities and privileges that came with it were tough to handle. He describes another awards show where he and Steve-O were given amazing hotel rooms, only for Pontius to get extremely drunk and end up passing out naked on top of an SUV outside, returning to the hotel in disgrace.
He has a son named Axe
Despite all the crazy (and many would say immature) stunts that make Chris Pontius seem like the living embodiment of Peter Pan, he has, in fact, grown-up. Pontius owns a house, has a wife, and in 2019, he became a dad.
As he announced on Instagram on December 14, 2019, "I am beyond excited to announce the birth of my Son, Axe Magnus Pontius! Thank you, Everybody, for your kind words, positivity, and inspiration for all these years!" Shortly after, Steve-O posted a picture on Facebook of himself, his longtime bromantic partner Pontius, and Axe in a loving embrace. "Chris is going to be a really great dad, and Axe is going to be a very wild boy," Steve-O wrote, noting that the photo was taken by Pontius' wife. Given Pontius' history of embracing danger and at times living on a razor edge, the sharp name of Axe is pretty appropriate.
Pontius has acted in several features
In his podcast interview with Chris Pontius, Steve-O describes how Pontius and Brandon DiCamillo were the two most naturally-funny guys in the crew (jokingly lamenting how he always had to do gross and painful stunts while Pontius could carry less dangerous bits thanks solely to his sense of humor). In fact, Pontius' sense of humor and charisma are strong enough that he's one of the few "Jackass" guys to also have acted in a few feature roles.
He appears as "Irish Henchman" in 2003's "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle." He plays Black Randy — the punk legend who started an L.A. punk label that released songs by groups including the Germs — in the Darby Crash (co-founder of the Germs) biopic "What We Do is Secret." He even has a major role in Johnny Knoxville's 2018 film "Action Point." This is especially poignant because, again, it's proof that the "Jackass" guys really liked Pontius enough to single him out for inclusion in their personal projects.
Pontius has several other roles, and while he may forever be known primarily as a wildboy and a jackass, the skater who became a writer who became a star who became a nature guide who became a dad has shown that reinvention is just another weapon in his ample arsenal.