Steve-O is fearless. He sets his hair on fire. He lets people throw darts at him. He shoots fireworks out of his bottom with such confusing regularity that people often mistake him for Sydney Harbour Bridge. But even Steve-O’s boundless physical endurance has its limits, which is why he ducked out of last night’s Dancing With The Stars because he hurt his back.

Next week: Johnny Knoxville quits Hell’s Kitchen because an onion looks at him funny.

All reality shows come replete with their fair share of dangers. American Idol contestants often have to battle laryngitis and vocal cord nodules. Anyone appearing on Survivor can expect to be pushed to the brink of physical exhaustion. And Beauty And The Geek routinely plunges people into the endlessly dark void of inescapable mental despair. Or maybe that’s just us.

The point is, Dancing With The Stars shouldn’t be one of these shows. It’s about ballroom dancing, for crying out loud – the sort of thing organised by nursing home staff to help take the residents’ minds off the fact that their families no longer love them. At best, the worst injury anyone expects from Dancing With The Stars is either the onset of deep-vein thrombosis brought about by unusually tight spandex or accidental sequin inhalation.

But no. Because this year’s Dancing With The Stars is killing people.

Just over a week ago, Nancy O’Dell and Jewel backed out of Dancing With The Stars due to injury. Not a total surprise, given that Nancy O’Dell’s hair makes her precipitously top-heavy and Jewel is, well, Jewel – but now things are getting serious. Steve-O, the Jackass star who deliberately injures himself for money, has also hurt himself enough to miss a show. AP reports:

The reality star was forced to skip Monday’s “Dancing With the Stars” after falling on his back during a dress rehearsal earlier in the day. He landed flat on his back after a failed front flip, smashing his spine into the microphone pack all performers wear. The 34-year-old was already nursing a pinched nerve in his back.

Well, look, OK, that does sound sort of painful. But Steve-O is a man who once skateboarded through a wall of fluorescent strip lightbulbs and trampolined into a ceiling fan and pushed a spike through his cheek on purpose and went to hospital for being mentally ill. Twirling around for the benefit of a shrieking Italian judge on Dancing With The Stars should be a cakewalk for him.

But it just goes to show that Dancing With The Stars is harder than it looks. And we agree with you completely, by the way – we’ve got our fingers crossed that it’ll be Denise Richards next, too.

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But lucky old us. The Dancing With The Stars producers have listened to our unspoken wishes and signed such a bewilderingly diverse array of celebrities for its new season that we’re honestly convinced that Len Goodman will end the final with a broken nose, several deep gashes to his face and a kitchen knife poking out the back of his skull.

How scary is the new Dancing With The Stars? Steve-O scary. Lil’ Kim scary. Jewel scary. Scary.

Look, Dancing With The Stars is mental enough already. Just thinking about Dancing With The Stars conjures up visions of tiny screeching incoherent Italian homosexuals, one-legged backflippers, frail old shuffling zombies, members of the Osmonds falling over for no reason and Steve Guttenberg – in short, the kind of visions we tend to save for our most terrifyingly anxious fever-dreams.

But whereas before Dancing With The Stars seemed like it had accidentally blundered into weirdness by accident, this year the show seems intent to dive headfirst into the abyss. Honestly, we’re not kidding. This year’s Dancing With The Stars is going to be like a more-spangly version of Dante’s Inferno.

Why? Because, dear lord, here are this year’s Dancing With The Stars contestants. May God have mercy on us all:

Denise Richards – The woman who was professionally naked until she got too old, then threw a computer at a wheelchair-bound pensioners head and made a reality TV show featuring nothing but her twitching and blinking. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 9

Belinda Carlisle – The woman who believes that heaven is a place on Earth. She’s wrong. It’s Devon. Devon is place on Earth. Idiot. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 6

Shawn Johnson – A 17-year-old professional gymnast. So, as if Shawn doesn’t get bullied enough for titting around in a leotard all day, he’s now going to learn how to samba? This one’s a loose cannon. He’s not even a boy. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 8

Lawrence Taylor – A former NFL footballer. That’s right, just like OJ Simpson. And what did OJ Simpson end up doing? THAT’S RIGHT. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 9

Lil’ Kim - Ex-jailbird midget rapper whose songs include Suck My Dick and Fuck You. But, other than that, we hear she’s just lovely. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 6

Steve-O – The man who used to make a good living from stapling his testicles to his thigh in front of crowds of people, before he took all the drugs in the world, went legitimately mad and got sectioned. In short, he’s just a little bit less mad than Denise Richards. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 8.5

Steve Wozniak – He co-founded Apple, which isn’t crazy at all. But Apple created the 1998hockey puck mouse, and that’s downright certifiable. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 8.5

David Alan Grier – A black comedian who can apparently do a passable Leonard Nimoy impersonation. Not crazy at all. We don’t know what he’s doing here. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 1

Gilles Marini – Has been in every single American drama show exactly once. One of them was Ugly Betty. Cuckoo. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 5

Nancy O’Dell – We can’t say with any real certainty who Nancy O’Dell is, but anyone who thinks that tanning herself that much is normal clearly isn’t the full ticket. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 7

Chuck Wicks – Never trust a man whose name is a command. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 12

Ty Murray – A professional rodeo rider who – hold the phone! – married Jewel. Clearly has deep self-loathing issues. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 8

Jewel – Come on, she’s Jewel for crying out loud. POTENTIAL DANCING WITH THE STARS CRAZY RANK – 43

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By which we mean that Steve-O is smart enough to plead guilty to cocaine possession after he filmed himself smashing up his neighbour’s house on drugs and then blogged extensively about his battle to the same drugs.

As a result of his guilty plea, it’s been announced that Steve-O’s only punishment for his March drug bust will be the rehab stint that he’s already partially through. And now that he’s clean, Steve-O knows that next time he staples his nuts to his leg it’ll be out of genuine mental dysfunction or self-loathing rather than drug addiction. Three cheers!

You know, we’re still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that Steve-O, the Jackass star famous for putting leeches on his eyeball, swimming in sewage and ramming fireworks up his bum, may have issues with drugs. Apparently the signs were there, but you have to admit he kept them well-hidden.

However, any problems that Steve-O may have had with drugs are firmly in the past now. And Steve-O isn’t one of those pussies who run away to rehab at the first sign of trouble – no, Steve-O decided to kick drugs by appearing in public in an increasingly inebriated state, then getting arrested for trashing his neighbour’s apartment while wankered on drugs with shitloads of cocaine on him, then getting admitted into a mental hospital and then going to rehab. That’s the man’s way.

And it’s Steve-O’s dedication to trying to kick his drug habit that’s spared him from serious punishment in court. E! Online reports:

To hear him tell it, Steve-O’s days of jackassery are behind him and he’s ready for a clean—and sober—slate. The thrill-seeking former MTV star entered a guilty plea today in Los Angeles to a cocaine-possession charge, announcing to the court that he “found God” and has been sober for 85 days. Attorney Barry Gerald Sands tells E! News that because of his client’s commitment and time in rehab, judgment was deferred upon successful completion of his treatment program.

What? Steve-O has found God? What was God doing in rehab? That’s not very encouraging.

But it is timely – tying your penis to a firework and deliberately giving your own mouth papercuts probably isn’t as much fun when you’re not spazzed off your munch on drugs, so it’s just as well that Steve-O has found religion. At worst he’ll be a super christian ambassador for troubled youngsters, and at best Jackass 3 is going to have a wicked awesome crucifixion stunt in it.

That’s assuming that Steve-O joins the clergy, of course – the world is full of suitable positions for mentally-ill drug addicts who polevault into human shit for a living. Ah, no, wait – he’s already done Celebrity Love Island, hasn’t he? Clergy it is, then.

Steve-O has been charged with felony cocaine possession following his weird recent vandalism arrest, but there's more. It's also been reported that Steve-O is currently on 14-day hold in a mental hospital after he allegedly sent suicide emails to all of his friends and started putting cigarettes out on his body.  

It seems that Steve-O's condition might be worse than anyone anticipated, which is probably why he should expect a call from the producers of How I Met Your Mother any day now.

Steve-O and Britney Spears don't seem to superficially have a lot in common other than nice short hair and the way that their movies always end in agony – in Steve-O's case it's agony for Steve-O, in Britney Spears' case the audience gets it – but scratch the surface and what do you see?

Well, not a lot really. Steve-O and Britney Spears really don't have much in common at all, but they've both been detained in nuthouses lately and that sort of justifies the comparison. Britney Spears you probably know about – what with every third hecklerspray post being about her – but Steve-O? News to us.

You'll remember that Steve-O was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of drug possession and vandalism, but that's just the start. As far as the drugs thing goes, Steve-O has just just been charged for felony cocaine possession. But as well as all this supposed drug-taking, Steve-O's mental health has taken a fall as well, and he's currently being held in a psychiatric hospital for a fortnight, as eFluxMedia reports:

An insider told Star Magazine that Steve-O was hospitalized Sunday at the Thalians Mental Health Center, specialized in crisis intervention, where he was put on 72-hour-hold, which has been extended to 14 days. “Steve is stabilized on meds at this point,” the source told Star. “He was also treated for burns on his skin as if he had been putting cigarettes out on his own body. A family member told Star that Steve-O suffers from bipolar disorder. During the weekend Steve-O allegedly sent suicide e-mails to friends. 

Concerns over his mental wellbeing? A possibly felony conviction? Things sure have taken a turn for the worse for poor Steve-O. Remember when he was just a fresh-faced youngster who'd vomit up goldfish and splash around in elephant poo and pole-vault into sewage? What could have possibly gone so wrong since then?

Read more:

Steve-O Under Medical Watch, Charged With Cocaine Possession - eFluxMedia 

Most people know that Steve-O is British born and once tried out for the circus. He ended up as a clown and probably spent show intervals playing the bongos on kids' heads with his testicles. TV is where he has found his natural home: getting bitten, shot, slapped, cut, chiselled, whipped, gassed, drinking salad dressing until he passes out – you name it, Steve-O has been to casualty for it.

As for the British thing, for a man so flagrantly interested in his undercarriage and unable to function without obscene quantities of beer, what else could he be?

Having already flouted the law so many times he has his own jail cell right next door to Robert Downey Jr's, news of Steve-O's arrest for allegedly punching holes in his own drywall is hardly front page material. Yet when you add up his call sheet of obscenity, vandalism, drugs charges and a stint on Celebrity Love Island, this time they might just throw away the key.

As reported on Female First, the full story goes:

Prankster Steve-O has reportedly been detained by police – after a neighbour caught him wrecking his Hollywood apartment complex. 

Amazingly, that's it – apart from the exciting prospect of said neighbour performing a citizen's arrest on the no-doubt inebriated star until police arrived. It is hard to imagine what might have worked. Distracting Steve-O with a rusty steak knife, some Vaseline and a baby alligator may have done the trick, but without a network camera crew around it's probably just bestiality. Ask MTV, it's on next season.

If he beats the rap for fighting his own house, Steve-O will continue on the second series of his reality show Dr. Steve-O. While not as outdated as, say, Ugly Betty, the concept of Steve-O 'helping' white trash members of the public ("wussies") overcome their fears by damaging themselves on television is just as likely to feature a fat woman with a moustache.

Okay, fine, we're being mean and insensitive. They're not all white trash.

Read More:

Steve-O Reportedly Jailed For Apartment Prank – Female First