Steve-O speaks out about moment he realised he had a sex addiction and had to get help
Steve-O opened up about how it took a serious health scare for him to realise that he had replaced one addiction with another and needed to seek help.
The Jackass star has been candid about his personal struggles throughout his career, revealing his battles with mental health issues, alcoholism and drug dependency over the years.
His extraordinary fame in the early 2000s alongside the likes of Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius, and Ryan Dunn, left him relying on substances and booze to cope, until he reached his 'rock bottom' in 2006.
Steve-O explained that he went to the premiere of the second Jackass film feeling 'like he was at his funeral' as he believed it was 'all downhill from here'.
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"We were more out of control with drugs and alcohol and sex than can even be believed," he said previously. "We were taking the biggest risks, we were doing the craziest stuff, and everything just worked. It was like magic.
"I knew we were never gonna beat that. I was so mad at that red carpet because it felt like it was like the end."
Two years later in 2008, the stuntman's Jackass co-stars were forced to 'stage an intervention' and Steve-O was placed under an involuntary 72-hour psychiatric hold.
"I've been clean and sober ever since then," he said.
However, it wasn't smooth sailing from there on out for the comedian, as he began to overdo it in another department.
Steve-O admitted that when he got clean, he began treating women 'terribly' and was 'acting out sexually a lot'.
The fact he had an army of adoring ladies waiting for him each night after his comedy show didn't help matters, as he just couldn't resist - and it was one of these females who ultimately helped him realise he had a sex addiction.
During episode 168 of his podcast, Steve-O's Wild Ride!, which was released in May last year, the 50-year-old opened up about the 'defining moment' which made him come to the conclusion that he needed professional help.
"The whole like sex addiction thing...there was this chick that I met after one of my shows, a long time ago.
"This was the beginning of 2013. And she was with a dude and I'm like, 'Oh, yeah'.
"She was like stoked to meet me and I'm like, 'Oh, let me get your number' - right in front of her dude," he laughed.
"She gives me her number and I hit her up after, and she's like, 'Oh, you know I'm with this dude'. And I was like, 'Okay, fair enough'. But then like a week or two later, she's like, 'I broke up with the dude'.
"I'm like right on, cool, so I fly her out to LA and and we're doing our thing.
"I remember too, I used to be pretty good about like protection and stuff - in this case, we weren't. We were just rocking it."
After a 'couple days' of reckless sh*gging, Steve-O decided to do the gentlemanly thing and take his lady friend on a hike up to the Hollywood sign to get an obligatory tourist picture.
And while they were there, she made a comment which ended up changing the course of the daredevil's life.
Steve-O continued: "She says, 'You know it's so weird, that guy I was with, his last relationship before me was with a dude'. And I'm like, 'Oh'.
"Because now I'm thinking this is high risk for HIV. I'm like spinning and spinning.
"I got back to my apartment and I'm like, 'I've got to walk the dogs'," the Jackass legend recalled. "While I'm walking the dogs around the block, I'm just Googling statistics on it.
"I'm freaking out. Then I get back to the pad and I'm like, you know, I'm already in it this far and so...I'm just doing it again.
"While I'm doing it again, I'm thinking like, 'What is my deal?!'
"That was when I first reached out to someone saying, 'Hey, you know, I need and I need to get it get a handle on this'."
After managing to surprise even himself by continuing to have sex with the woman despite being aware of the risk, Steve-O decided this was the tipping point and that he needed to turn his life around.
The funnyman - real name Stephen Gilchrist Glover - revealed that he then began to see a sex therapist, who suggested that he should try and go celibate for around two weeks.
"I was trying it and I couldn't," he said on the podcast. "It was this comedy of errors. At the time I was doing stand-up and I was just like getting material out of it, of how impossible it was for me."
But thankfully, Steve-O managed to stay on the straight and narrow after attending what he described as an 'outpatient sex addict rehab' - and incredibly, he went a whopping 431 days without sex after the programme.
"I felt strongly that my mission was to become the man that the love of my life deserves," he said.
Go Steve-O!
Topics: Sex and Relationships, Steve-O, Celebrity, Health, Mental Health, Jackass
Olivia Burke