When publications referred to Rachel Wolfson as the first female member of the Jackass crew in 2022, fans who’d been watching since the original MTV series began more than two decades earlier were no doubt rolling their eyes at the assertion. Wolfson might be the latest female addition, but a woman named Stephanie Hodge would probably take issue with being labeled the first. Although Hodge never became a recognizable name like Johnny Knoxville or Bam Margera, she was part of Jackass’s early cast and participated in stunts as well. Unfortunately, she was forced to hang it up after just a brief run on the show.
Hodge was working as a model and actress when she first met Knoxville on the set of the movie Coyote Ugly in 2000. The two became fast friends, and Knoxville soon invited her to be on his new MTV series. Hodge’s introduction to Jackass fans came in the fourth episode of the first season, in which she took part in a hard-boiled-egg-eating contest and quickly threw up in the process. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it,’” Hodge remembered years later. “I’ll get paid a couple hundred bucks and nobody will see it.”
That didn’t end up being the case once the episode finally aired, though. Before long, Hodge heard from her parents, who’d been receiving calls telling them, “Your daughter is puking on TV.” Embarrassing as that must’ve been, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the repercussions she’d suffer a little while later. One of the stunts Hodge was involved in after that turned out so bad that the footage was never even used.
The plan was simply for Hodge to ride an air mattress down a snowy hill. Things didn’t go according to plan, however, and a snowbank sent her flying. The landing broke Hodge’s back and pelvis and almost paralyzed her. It took six months for her to recover from her injuries.
“The accident was just that: an accident,” Hodge said of the incident. “Obviously, they don’t want anybody to get hurt, no matter what the situation.” Until Wolfson joined the cast of Jackass Forever, Knoxville was adamant about not having females perform stunts, recalling that Hodge’s injury was “like watching your sister get hurt, and we don’t want to see girls getting hurt.”
Hodge would go on to appear in the first two Jackass movies as a ring card girl, leaving the stunts to the rest of the stars.
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