‘Jackass Forever’ Stunts Outrage PETA, Calls For Criminal Investigation Of Cruelty To Animals

Paramount’s new Jackass Forever film has drawn condemnation from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which called for a criminal investigation into the production.

The film was released this week and so far has grossed an estimated $20 million. The sequel to 2010’s Jackass 3D, it is the fourth main installment and the fifth overall installment in the Jackass film series.

PETA claimed a stunt in which Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O provoke honeybees into stinging Steve-O’s penis (killing many of them), and another in which a scorpion is put in someone’s mouth and hit repeatedly until the animal stings are particularly worrisome.

The organization has sent letters to Los Angeles city and San Luis Obispo County prosecutors about the matter. PETA points out that the Paramount Pictures movie—which appears to have been filmed at least partially in Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo County—likely broke state animal protection laws.

Objections included scenes that include a spider being provoked into biting an actor’s chest, a turtle being harassed and goaded until the animal bites an actor’s testicles, a captive snake harangued and provoked into biting a person’s nose, a tarantula trapped in a tube between two participants’ faces, and a bull deliberately agitated into charging Knoxville, reportedly leaving him with a brain hemorrhage, among other injuries.