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‘Jackass’ Star Steve-O Does Backflip Before Serving Jail Time

By Niki Cruz
Published on: 04:18 PST, Dec 10, 2015

Jackass star Steve-O was doing backflips over his 30-day jail sentence, sort of. According to Us Magazine, the Jackass star, who was sentenced to 30-days in jail, did a backflip before heading into the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in California, where he will complete his 30-day sentence.

Steve-O, who hammed it up for the MTV cameras as a part of the team of Jackass, gave a statement in a personal video about his new home in jail.

“Here we are at Twin Towers Correctional Facility. This is my reservation.”

And then, in pure Steve-O nature, the reality star jumped off the jail’s signage.

He continued, “And I’m ready, let’s go!”

He captioned the video with, “Here I am at jail. See ya when I see ya, folks! #yeahdude #SeaWorldSucks.”

So why the Sea World hashtag? It’s simple, really. Steve-O, whose actual name is Stephen Glover, was arrested back in August in protest of Sea World. His action of choice was to climb a 100-foot crane in Hollywood to protest the facility. After he was arrested, Steve-O was then sentenced to 30 days in jail back in October.

Steve-O didn’t just capture himself flipping outside of jail. He also decided to film himself while he was protesting Sea World. His original video shows the reality star holding up an inflatable orca he named “Shammy” up to the camera and attaching it to the crane. During the video, he makes note of the cop cars that arrived once they heard of the Jackass star’s protest. During the protest, he decided to set off some fireworks.

Steve-O was charged with creating a false emergency, trespassing, and using unregistered fireworks. In addition to spending his time in jail, he will also have to pay $14,000 to the city of Los Angeles.

The protest, as you probably could have guessed, was in opposition of Sea World and how they treat orca whales. Since the release of the 2013 documentary Blackfish, Sea World has seen major damage with their brand.

The documentary holds a microscope under the whole Sea World establishment and reveals them as the main culprit behind the alleged poor treatment of whales in their facilities across the globe. The documentary also covers the deaths of trainers, who weren’t notified beforehand the aggression the orca whales were living with because of their environment.

For instance, the whales are captured in their infancy and pulled from their families. There are sects of whales that speak different dialects in their given family. The whales living in captivity are all speaking in different languages and are forced into an unnatural “groups” together while in any given Sea World area. Between the lack of communication and the tight tanks these whales are kept in, the doc claims this is a huge breeding ground for aggression in these whales.

At first, Sea World wrote a letter to critics that were screening the film, lambasted the production that made it, and tried to take a stand against the film. However, their strong stance that those behind the film were making false accusations really didn’t hold much weight, given how much footage these used in the documentary. As a result, the visitors were down 0.4 percent, focusing mainly on their facility in San Diego.

In November of 2015, it was reported that their stock was downgraded at Merrill Lynch. Their stock went from “neutral” to “underperform,” with the firm cutting stock to $19 from a previous $22. The company said that SeaWorld needs a better branding image to be successful again.

Update (12 p.m. EST): Steve-O was released from jail after only a few hours.

[Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]

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