G4
Jackass daredevil and beloved co-host of the G4 television show Proving Ground, Ryan Dunn, died in a fiery car crash early this morning in Pennsylvania at age 34. He was well known for his outrageous stunts performed on the Jackass television series, as well as in Jackass: The Movie, Jackass 2, and Jackass 3D. Often Dunn would appear as a guest on another MTV series, Viva La Bam. Later, he hosted an MTV reality series titled Homewrecker that was a twist on popular home renovation shows such as Extreme Makeover: Home Edition or Trading Spaces. Instead of picking a room and drastically improving it, a person would submit a story of how they were victimized by one of their friends. Dunn would observe the offender, then grab the original participant and a team of helpers to redesign the room with a theme relevant to the evildoer’s erroneous ways.
Most recently, Dunn co-hosted Proving Ground, a series on G4 with IGN’s Jessica Chobot in which they would try to recreate memorable moments from popular comics, television shows, movies, and video games to see if they actually could be replicated in the real world. The show premiered on June 14, 2011 to 31,000 viewers, however, due to Dunn’s death, G4 has pulled the series from their schedule. The fate of Proving Ground has yet to be determined.
It’s been confirmed that Dunn was driving his Porsche 911 GT3 with a currently unidentified passenger. The police reported hinted that “speed may have been a factor” which was later confirmed in NBC Philadelphia’s report. According to Officer Geiger of the West Goshen police, “The Porsche shot through about 40 yards of trees before it hit the last one and exploded into flames.” Dunn was last seen at Barnaby’s of America, a local sports bar in West Chester. He tweeted a photo of him and a couple friends enjoying a drink, which was later pulled from his Tumblr account. The image can be viewed in the slideshow to the left. Regardless of the impression the photo gives off, Barnaby’s manager told NBC Philadelphia that “Ryan didn’t appear drunk before he left.” Police have yet to confirm whether alcohol was involved.
Fellow Jackass star Johnny Knoxville publicly mourned the death of his co-star and friend on his twitter account. “Today I lost my brother Ryan Dunn. My Heart goes out to his family and his beloved Angie. RIP Ryan, I love you buddy.” Although Bam Margera has not publicly spoken of Dunn’s death, his parents Phil and April Margera had nice some nice words as well. “He’s just the sweetest guy you’d ever want to know and he would do anything for you, “April said fighting back tears.” I know the entire 'Jackass' family is devastated and all of West Chester is devastated." MTV also released a statement via Twitter soon after Ryan Dunn’s death was announced. "We're deeply saddened by the passing of a member of the MTV family, Ryan Dunn. Our hearts and thoughts are with his friends and family.”