Johnny Knoxville on Bam, bromance, and Jackass's last act
Johnny Knoxville says Bam Margera was invited to appear in Jackass: Best and Last but declined, while a New Yorker essay frames the franchise as a tender, risky kind of male bonding—a bromance under strain as the farewell film leans on nostalgia and recycled stunts. That split—affection on one side, estrangement on the other—is why this summer’s send-off matters beyond the bruises.
Key Takeaways
- Knoxville told Esquire that Margera was invited to Jackass: Best and Last, declined, and that the cast still wanted him in it.
- Margera appears only in a 2020 outtake and has said he never wants to see Knoxville or Jeff Tremaine again.
- The New Yorker links Jackass’s mayhem to vulnerable male bonding—the “lost art” of the bromance.
- Reviews say the roughly 90-minute film is about half recycled footage and aims to close the franchise.
What did Johnny Knoxville say about Bam Margera?
According to Yahoo Entertainment, Knoxville addressed Margera’s absence in an Esquire interview after Jackass: Best and Last hit the 2026 schedule. “He was invited to be in Jackass: Best and Last, but he's not there yet. So he declined, and I love him. I respect his decision. We all wanted him in it, but that's fine. He didn't want to be. We're good,” Knoxville said.
Margera still shows up in one 2020 outtake. Speaking to Rolling Stone, he said he has no bad blood with the wider cast but blamed decisions by Knoxville and Tremaine, adding he never wants to see them again. A lawsuit after Jackass Forever was settled after that 2022 release; the personal rift has not.
Producers have tied Margera’s earlier exit from Jackass Forever to personal problems; Margera has said the rehab condition for returning was not honored. The latest film did not reopen that door with new footage.
Why does The New Yorker call Jackass a bromance?
In “The Lost Art of the Bromance,” Katy Waldman opens on a fifty-five-year-old Knoxville still embodying pointless havoc and bro-y one-upmanship. The MTV series that launched in 2000 looked nihilistic to critics, yet Waldman argues the franchise channelled aggression disarmingly.
She senses something tender in the cast’s impetuousness: bonding, vulnerability in front of the guys, and openly enjoying one another’s company. That reading makes Margera’s absence more than cast gossip—it cuts against the emotional risk the show once sold as friendship.
Is Jackass: Best and Last really the end?
Ynetnews reviews the movie as a declared swan song: half recycled “best of” bits fans already know, plus nostalgia clips and a few new stunts. It opens with 1998 footage of Knoxville in a bulletproof vest shooting himself in the stomach—the seed of the franchise’s madness.
Core members are now roughly 50 to 56. New bits skew age-coded, including a robot prostate exam for Steve-O—odd tech theater that sits oddly next to our Future Tech & AI Wonders beat, yet still feels like a closing joke more than a reboot. Box office for Jackass Forever already fell sharply from earlier peaks; early U.S. weekends for Best and Last suggest further shrinkage.
Knoxville’s public warmth toward Bam, Bam’s hard line, and a half-nostalgia finale all point the same way: the stunts endure on film, but the old spark of the crew’s shared trust does not.