“Jackass” star Johnny Knoxville said UA Greek Life’s party scene made his heart race, literally. His beer was dosed with ecstasy while filming a promo for “Bad Grandpa” at a UA fraternity house last month, the 42-year-old actor told celebrity news outlet TMZ.
Members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity will have to meet with the Dean of Students for a second time regarding what happened at the Sept. 6 party, UA officials said.
In an interview with TMZ earlier this month, Knoxville alleged that someone put ecstasy in his beer while he was shooting a promo at the fraternity house.
“Someone dosed me with ecstasy and after that the wheels fell off,” Knoxville said in the interview.
The Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity hosted the promo shoot of the comedy “Bad Grandpa” with Knoxville in attendance on Sept. 6 with permission from the university, said Chrissy Lieberman, associate dean of students.
UA officials first began investigating the event after photos of alcohol at the fraternity house surfaced through media outlets.
“It was intended to be an event without alcohol and that was the reason why the event was allowed to happen,” Lieberman said. “When we were made aware of the media with the imagery where it appeared that alcohol was present, the case was looked into by our office and forwarded to our Greek Standards Board.”
The board heard the case last Wednesday, before the allegations by Knoxville came to light. According to Lieberman, by now the fraternity should have a sanction letter from the Greek Standards Board for having alcohol present and violating policy. The board is now investigating the new allegations with Sigma Alpha Epsilon leaders.
“The recent allegation is kind of a new twist on things so this is something the Dean of Students office is going to be following up with, just because it falls outside of what the original investigation was looking into,” she said.
Although Knoxville did not specify which fraternity house he had been at, Lieberman said a connection could be made between Sigma Alpha Epsilon and the dosing.
“I don’t believe that he has necessarily alleged they’re the ones responsible, as much as he’s stated it happened at the University of Arizona,” Lieberman said, “but since our office was aware that Knoxville was present at the house then there are some lines that can be drawn there.”
The president of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity did not return requests for comment. Greek Life officials declined to comment and directed inquiries to a university communications spokesperson.
“We knew about the visit,” said Chris Sigurdson, a UA communications spokesperson. “He sent some tweets, went home. As far as we knew, that was the end of it. It’s something he said in a couple of media accounts and that’s really all the information we have on it.”
– Follow Brittny Mejia @BrittnyAriel
