Johnny Knoxville Describes ‘Fear’ of Learning He’d Be a First-Time Father

Johnny Knoxville recalled to People how he was “terrified” and “frozen” when he learned he would be a first-time father. When his then-girlfriend, and future-wife, Melanie Lynn Cates told the star she was expecting a daughter, “I was frozen,” Knoxville said.

This would have been around 1995, long before Knoxville made his name with Jackass or any of his subsequent acting roles. He was terrified that having a child would end his career before it began. At the time, he was “waiting tables” and “didn’t have any money” to support the “great responsibility” of parenthood.

"When I was 24, and my first wife, she was then my girlfriend, said she was pregnant, we're going to have a baby. I don't think I've ever had that much fear in my life," Knoxville recalled.

But rather instantly, Knoxville found himself willing to part with all of his dreams to raise his new family. "I'm like, 'Well, I don't mind,’” he said at the time. “All of my acting, I can forget about that.'"

What gave Knoxville sleepless nights, though, was the prospect of supporting a newborn on a waiter’s salary. "How am I going to support this kid?" Knoxville recalled wondering, as part of "the cycle of things that runs through your head when you get frightened over something."

But as soon as his daughter, Madison, was born, all of Knoxville’s anxious fears melted away. "I don't want to sound corny, because it sounds corny, but in the hospital, the baby was born and she was put into my arms. Just looking at her, all of my fear went away. It just went away," the actor marveled.

"I was like, 'I think we got this,'" Knoxville told Clapp in the hospital room. "And it was a wonderful feeling. Being a father is…I don't know if there's a greater thing, you know, it's a responsibility and it's hard, but it's great.”

Knoxville subsequently welcomed two more children with his second wife, Naomi Nelson.

“I love being a parent," Knoxville told People.

Knoxville is currently doing the press rounds to promote his new movie Sweet Dreams, a dark addiction drama; as well as his podcast, Pretty Sure I Can Fly, which he co-hosts with Elena Baker.