Johnny Knoxville has done some pretty stupid things in his time – most notably the Dukes Of Hazzard movie.
But forget that. Because everything that Johnny Knoxville has ever done – like getting shot, riding a bicycle off a diving board, being smacked in the testicles with a mallet, trying to make polite conversation with Jessica Simpson, especially trying to make polite conversation with Jessica Simpson – looks like the work of a highly respected quantum physicist compared with what he’s just done.
Johnny Knoxville has just been arrested. For trying to take a hand grenade onto an aeroplane. Top that, Wee Man.
You need a certain mindset to be able to do what the cast of Jackass does. In Steve-O‘s case, that mindset happens to be that of a drug-addled mental patient who is genuinely terrifying. And in the case of Johnny Knoxville, it would appear to be the mindset of the Shoe Bomber.
Since the last Jackass movie was released, Johnny Knoxville has been keeping something of a low profile, only appearing occasionally to divorce his wife or attach himself to any number of movies that nobody in their right mind would ever dream of watching. But that’s because he was biding his time – waiting to pull off the biggest stunt of his life.
And that stunt involved appearing to accidentally trying to board a plane with a hand grenade in his luggage. Which, in fact, Johnny Knoxville did yesterday at LAX. The Daily Breeze reports:
Knoxville, whose given name is John Philip Clapp, was detained by Airport Police as he was about to board a 7 a.m. American Airlines flight to Miami, LAX spokeswoman Nancy Castles said. Knoxville, 38, of Malibu was moving through passenger security when a Transportation Security Administration officer saw the image of a hand grenade in his carry-on bag, Castles said.
Now, although the grenade was inspected by the bomb squad and found to have no explosives or firing pin, Johnny Knoxville was still arrested, with police hoping to charge him with possession of a prohibited item within the sterile area of an airport.
For what it’s worth, Johnny Knoxville claims that the grenade was a prop for a photoshoot that he’d forgotten to remove from his luggage. Which is no doubt a familiar excuse to anyone who remembers when Snoop Dogg was arrested for trying to take a 21-inch police baton onto a plane in 2006. His excuse, too, was that it was merely a prop for a video. Not that we’ve ever seen the video, of course. We believe it was entitled Cosh Yourself Thin With Snoop Dogg or something.
But anyway, Johnny Knoxville should be thankful that, at worst, he’ll only be slapped with a misdemeanour charge. Because taking a hand grenade onto an aeroplane on the exact same day that an aeroplane crashed into a river in New York is undoubtedly the stupidest thing anyone has ever done in an airport.
Or, you know, the second-stupidest thing if you don’t count David Hasselhoff wetting himself. Which we’re not sure we should, in honesty.