If you're a Jackass fan you'll obviously know the likes of Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O and Wee-man - but you may not remember Stephanie Hodge.
Believe it or not, the Jackass cast wasn't originally just made up of nine men with a ferocious appetite for outlandish and daring stunts, with LA model and actress Stephanie Hodge taking part in the first few seasons too.
However, Hodge - the show's first female stunt women - isn't well recognised from the programme as a result of her suffering a brutal injury, which meant she had to tap out of the franchise for good.
Advert
Prior to appearing alongside the MTV pranksters, Hodge met Knoxville while working their first big screen feature, 2000’s Coyote Ugly.
The unlikely meeting led to them become friends between takes, as they shared interested in skateboarding subculture.
By the time Jackass was in production, Hodge was friends with most of the main cast and immediately, said yes to being in the series - thinking it would flop.
In an interview with Asylum, she admitted that she didn’t even tell her family about the show - despite appearing in several stunts.
"I was like, 'Yeah, I'll do it'," she said, adding: "I'll get paid a couple of hundred bucks and nobody will see it.”
Hodge made her debut by taking part in a boiled egg eating contest with Preston Lucy and Craig Nieratko as the token ‘hot girl’.
Having scoffed down nine eggs and speedily puked them back up, the moment back made TV history and gave birth to the franchise.
“I was in New York working and the episode I was on aired, and my phone started ringing like crazy,” she recalled.
She even remembers her family’s reaction: “My parents called me. My brother saw it. Everybody f**king saw it. They all said that they wished I would have told them because they all got calls saying, 'Your daughter is puking on TV.'"
However, the hilarious escapades wouldn’t last forever.
Hodge was the first cast member to have a serious injury as they filmed atop a snow-covered mountain in Portland, Oregon.
The stunt saw the cast hurtle down a hill on everyday objects, including a portable toilet, a step ladder and a mattress – complete with bedding.
Having seen the rest of the cast perform the stunt, Hodge volunteered for the last object.
“They were like, 'It would be so much funnier if it was a girl instead of a guy' and I said 'OK, I'll do it', not really realizing what that meant," she admitted.
As she descended the mountain, she hit a snowbank and was launched into the air, resulting in her snapping her pelvis and spine.
"The accident was just that: an accident," she told the publication, adding: “Obviously they don't want anybody to get hurt, no matter what the situation -- not friends or anyone working with them. I think it was just an unfortunate situation”.
After the incident, Hodge slowly began to recover with hours of physical therapy and said that MTV took ‘really good care’ of her as her body repaired.
Despite what happened, it only strengthened her friendship with her co-stars and she even went on to star as a ring girl in the 2002 Jackass film.
While it took a huge toll on her body, Hodge said she was ‘100 percent proud’ to have contributed to the infamous prank franchise.
Topics: Health, Film and TV, Jackass, Mental Health, Entertainment, US News, Celebrity
Katherine Sidnell