Sex Addiction Masked My Greatest Fear: How 431 Days Of Celibacy Led Steve-O To The Love of His Life

- Once I had a foundation in sobriety, I found myself really acting out sexually a lot. I developed this pattern where I would meet a woman and become infatuated with her and I would pour on the charm. And then like, once she fell for me, then I would just ghost. Not only was I not treating them the way that I want to be treated, I was actually treating them specifically the way I most fear being treated myself. I promised myself I'm not gonna act out anymore, and I just couldn't. It was just an

endless cycle of shame. - This episode of "What's Underneath Masculinity" is made possible with the support of BetterHelp. If you wanna start therapy, give BetterHelp a try and head to betterhelp.com/whatsunderneath for 10% off your first month. - [Interviewer] I just wanna begin by just really thanking you for being here. For most people, it's not an easy ask, but I know for you it, it's maybe a little bit easier and this is why we're so excited to have you here. - More difficult than one migh

t imagine. I'm gonna be very self-conscious about my figure, but I'm not letting that hold me back. - [Interviewer] Can you just begin by talking about how you're feeling right now? - I'm feeling like every day a new part of my body is complaining. It's relatively new to have pain and discomfort without an injury causing it. I hate to say this, but I feel fragile. I feel fragile because I have a fear of my deteriorating appearance making me unlovable. I feel that I won't look as good as I once d

id. And that's okay, man, I'm gonna rock it. - [Interviewer] Can you take off maybe the glasses first and then we'll do the jacket next? - Okay, I am tempted to see if I can balance them. There we go, cool. Yeah, it says something I learned in clown college. - [Interviewer] Can you talk a little bit about what your style says about you? - For the most part, my style says that I do all my shopping at Target, with the exception of course, of this cool jacket, which I picked up at a thrift store in

, I think Michigan. I don't like to be flashy in general. I derive my self-esteem and my pride and all the ego stuff from what I do, not what I have. And I'm really into what I do. Like I want people to think I'm badass. So like, the one thing I like about cold weather is I get to wear this baby. - [Interviewer] Can you talk a little bit about the assumptions that you think people make about you based on your appearance? - My father said, "The world is full of people, dumb people who try to look

smart and fall on their ass." He says, "Steve, I think is actually really intelligent, but he does a great job of looking stupid and I think that's why he's been successful." 'Cause it was always like a really guarded secret almost that I wasn't so dumb. - [Interviewer] Why do you think that you wanted to make yourself look stupid? - It was very clear to me that I was not very well equipped to keep a normal job, just like lacking the basic survival skills to navigate the world. I dropped outta

college and I just thought, "Oh man, like I'm gonna become a crazy famous stuntman." And everybody who I told this plan to felt genuinely sorry for me. Like it was just a tragedy what a loser I was. No plan B, no net to fall on and I just went for it. One thing I really loved was the video camera and I thought if I really videotaped crazy enough stuff, then that video footage would outlive me. So the video camera was like a religion for me. This was like my afterlife, this was immortality. When

I was attending Ringling Brothers and Barn & Bailey Clown College in 1997. And I was in this marine biologist's apartment just drinking, and I told her, "We're all gonna die. We're all gonna be dead, but I've got these videos that are gonna live forever." She said, "You know what, how about this? If I do my job and a fish nibbles on a coral reef that I was able to preserve, I'm still alive. I live forever, it's just not all about you." So everybody's got their own way to have a legacy and to aff

ect change, and mine is just particularly self-absorbed and ego-driven. And that's okay. (interviewer laughing) - [Interviewer] Can you talk about the biggest insecurity that you're working on overcoming or maybe recently have worked on? - One that I've really made a lot of progress with has to do with my pursuit of a career in standup comedy. And when I decided to do that, I was not necessarily welcomed into that world. Like, did it feel good to be rejected? No, but did I turn around and say fu

ck everybody and put it out by myself and find success doing that? Yeah and ultimately I put together this whole show called "The Bucket List". At that point, I finally felt like I belonged on a stage performing comedy. I'm not waiting for permission from some asshole in a suit to green light my project and gimme a budget. And that's the digital revolution, which is a double-edged sword. Like every piece of content just has right on there, public facing, like how well it performed. And it's so t

ricky to not get tied to that with your self-esteem. What became very clear to me is that I've got to find separation between who I am and the persona of Steve-O. And so in order for me to be like happy and fulfilled in my later years, I knew I had to figure out how to find a life partner who can be by my side as I weather the storm of becoming an aging attention whore. - [Interviewer] So was there like a rock bottom in your journey that led you to this realization that you needed to separate St

eve-O the persona from the rest of yourself? - I would point to the premiere of our second movie "Jackass" in 2006, and we were taking the biggest risks. We were doing the craziest stuff and everything just worked. It was like, just magic. I knew we were never gonna beat that, and I just felt like, whew, it's all downhill from here. And I remember going to that premiere and feeling like I was at my funeral. I stepped onto that red carpet and I was just mad at that red carpet because it was like

the end, like we were all like more out of control with drugs and alcohol and sex than like, can he even be believed? I had like major trauma around my mom who had suffered an aneurysm and survived it, but heinously disabled both physically and mentally, and it was like suffering that shouldn't exist. I mean, I just like felt very angry at any God that would allow that to happen. Everything got like tremendously dark. In one week, I was arrested for a felony cocaine possession. I got evicted, I

sent this mass email saying that Johnny Knoxville better bring a hot tub so I can jump out of this window into the hot tub next door. And if you don't come, then I'm jumping anyway, I'm ready to die. That email qualified me for California's 5150 law, which meant they could lock me up in a psychiatric ward. And that's when Johnny Knoxville and the "Jackass" guys staged an intervention on me. And yeah, I've been clean and sober ever since then. This is my cool hat from Tony Hawk. But I can't reall

y describe all the pain 'cause there was so much of it, but I can't say that the solution to my problems I found in recovery. And once I had a foundation in sobriety, I found myself really acting out sexually a lot. I started touring the comedy clubs. So I would do this meet and greet after every show, and that meet and greet was a glorified audition to find a partner to act out with that night. I developed this pattern where I would meet a woman and become infatuated with her. I'd really think,

"Oh, she's the greatest." And I would believe that and I would pour on the charm and then like, once she fell for me, then like a light switch, I would like lose interest in her. I would just ghost and like, I would feel so terrible about myself after doing that because not only was I not treating them the way that I want to be treated, I was actually treating them specifically the way I most fear being treated myself. It was just like using people up and throwing them away and I knew exactly w

hat a piece of shit I was. It was just an endless cycle of shame. I promised myself I'm not gonna act out anymore, and I just couldn't. I started seeing a sex therapist and that person ultimately recommended that I go into a outpatient sex addict rehab, and I did that. And the way it works with sex is that each addict will define their own sexual sobriety. Meaning that for one sex addict, porn could be perfectly fine when for another, like serious no go. So you make a list of red light behaviors

where anything on that list constitutes a relapse. For me, like massage parlors, super red light, being in a strip club was a red light. I had some starts and stops and some and stumbles, but ultimately when I got outta that sex addict rehab, they recommended a period of celibacy between like maybe 30 and 90 days. And I was just like, I ended up going 431 days because I felt strongly that my mission was to become the man that the love of my life deserves. - We know you're really gripped by the

story you're hearing, but we just wanted to interrupt this episode very quickly to tell you a little bit about our incredible sponsor BetterHelp. - So, Lils, how do you feel about therapy? - I don't know what I would do without therapy, I'm so grateful. I recognize that it's a privilege to have access to therapy and not everyone does, but thanks to companies like BetterHelp that are offering it at a more affordable rate. And I think it's helping revolutionize the space and create way more opport

unities for people to access healing and it's incredible. - If you're thinking of starting therapy, we really recommend that you give BetterHelp a try. - It's entirely online and it's designed to be super convenient and flexible to suit your schedule. All you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire online and you'll get matched with a licensed professional therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for any reason if you're not satisfied. - If you want therapy, try BetterHelp today.

- Visit betterhelp.com/whatsunderneath for 10% off of your first month. That's betterhelp.com/whatsunderneath for 10% off your first month. - And now back to the episode. - I met Lux on a job. We went on a bunch of dates. We didn't like kiss for over a month and I was like fully transparent and explained to her that I was really coming in with a terrible track record for relationships and yeah, we just did everything correctly. How long - [Interviewer] How long have you been together? - We've b

een together for approaching seven years. Never once doubted for a fucking second that I want to be with her. - [Interviewer] When was the last time that you like made a mistake, like feel like you caused harm to someone that you love? - I can't even believe that I did this too. Like what a fucking shitty thing. I've got this editor, unbelievably talented dude, his name's Paul Brisske, but he has his like music career and he's just got this like wanderlust where he wants to be like anywhere in t

he world except working on my stuff. And so it's like, ugh, on top of paying Paul for all of his hours of work, I give him a percentage of my ad revenue from YouTube. I want him to participate in what we're building together, but at a certain point he's fucking in one country and the next country and I'm having to work with this other editor and I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall because this guy doesn't know what he's doing. I mean, he's a good editor, but he's not Paul, Paul's no

t even making the video and he's gonna get the percentage of the AdSense revenue. I'm like, no, I can't do it. And so the next time a commission statement came up from my bookkeeper, I was like, "No, no, no, we're hacking it." But I didn't tell Paul, just like, ah, and like there were so many times it occurred to me and I just somehow didn't have the balls to tell him. Finally, like recently I was like, "Hey dude, I did you dirty," and I made him whole in one lump payment. - [Interviewer] Did yo

u say I'm sorry or what? - Yeah, well, I mean, you don't wanna say I'm sorry because it's more of an, "I want to acknowledge that I was wrong and try to make it right." On our ninth step, where it says we made amends wherever possible. The word amends, it means to fix, like it's a huge deal because the overwhelming majority of people like will not admit that they were wrong. - [Interviewer] Right. - Even when they're so wrong, it's like their ego just refuses to compromise itself by admitting wr

ongdoing. And that's so backwards because when you do step up and admit that you were wrong, people respect you, man. So it's like the attention whore kid who's like, "I'm gonna live forever 'cause I've got rad videos," is still that same attention whore, but he's just kind of learning from that marine biology person, like taking to heart what that person said that was of tremendous value. - [Interviewer] When was the last time you cried? - Man, I wish I knew. I'm not being macho here, trying to

pretend like I don't cry all the time, okay? I'm tempted to ask Lux when's the last time I cried? Am I allowed to do that? - [Interviewer] Sure. - Cool. (phone ringing) - [Lux] Hey babe. - Hey babe. - [Lux] My love. - Honey, when was the last time I cried? - [Lux] When Bern Bern passed. - Ah, yeah, my dog Bernie died. I mean, he was just old. - [Lux] The nature of what we do, honey, taking care of babies, it's so awesome and we love it, but then they pass and that fucking sucks. - Yeah. - [Lux]

You look so handsome. - Oh, thank you baby. (laughing) - You look like you just woke up and you're so beautiful. - [Lux] Aw, thank you baby, love you. - All right, love you too, okay bye. - What is your favorite and least favorite part of your body? - I mean, when I was in my twenties, I had a fucking rad body. I spent so much time doing acrobatics and like I could like walk up and downstairs on my hands. So I just had like this super toned, like chiseled, muscular physique. I mean, if anything

, if I have like body insecurity, it's just comparing to a younger version of me. But you're right, it's silly. I didn't get to where I am because I'm a sex symbol. Like I've never been a pinup, and then Lux and I had each other to say, "Stop being mean to the love of my life." Yeah, she'll be mean to herself and I'll tell her that, "You will not treat the love of my life that way." - [Interviewer] Aww. - And she'll say that to me too. - [Interviewer] Yeah, you can take off your pants. - Alright

. I definitely get unreasonably self-conscious when I see photos with wrinkles and gray hair and I struggle with that more than I should. And I think because my identity is kind of tied up in really, adolescence, like I do like silly childish shit for a living. So I feel like for me it's not permissible to get old. (laughing) All right, how about that? - [Interviewer] Iconic. - Why in your body, in your skin, in your journey, why is it a good place to be? - It's great to be in my skin because I

don't have any secrets. I like who I am, I'm proud of how I live my life. Yeah, I'm just proud of who I've become. We really have the responsibility to assign to our life meaning, to find something that we're passionate about and pursue it to the point where being in our body is the ultimate privilege. - [Interviewer] Tooth? - Yeah, yeah. Be careful with that guy. I'm profoundly grateful to have found meaning in my life. Okay, I'm just gonna let it ride right on the floor. About which I'm passio

nate and not just pursuing it, but until the fucking wheels fall off. (buzzer whirring) All right. I think we can live with that. All right. - [Interviewer] Beautiful. - Thank you. - [Speaker] Let's do it again. - [Speaker] That's incredible, that's so impressive. - Thank you. - [Interviewer] Last question, what does it mean to you to be man enough? - I don't know that I assign any particular value to traits like for men over women. Like if you've got integrity, if you're honest and you hold you

rself accountable, then no matter who you are, that's the most important thing. That's it and that's not just male, that's like human. - [Interviewer] How do you feel now? - I feel good, I feel like everybody really needs to see how fucking awesome this multimedia comedy special is at steveo.com. - [Interviewer] Okay. - Like, hands down. - [Interviewer] I cannot wait. - The best fucking thing I've ever made. - [Interviewer] Okay, cannot wait. - Yeah. - Thank you for tuning into this week's episo

de of "What's Underneath Masculinity" with Steve-O in partnership with Man Enough. - Yeah, dude. And for more episodes just like this, subscribe to StyleLikeU. - And don't forget to click the bell so that you're reminded of every time we drop a new episode. Now we're gonna blow a kiss, you can do whatever you want. - Sure, let's do it. (blowing kisses)