Evel Knievel Dies
Legendary daredevil Evel Knievel has died. He was 69.
The announcement was made on his official website earlier today. He’d been in poor health for a while now, and his most recent appearance on USA Today earlier in the year showed just how much his many “daredevil injuries” had bothered him in his old age. Knievel was “crippled with arthritis, recovering from a stroke” and aching all over his body. He’d commented on the show that he no longer felt invincible.
“I think about God a lot more than ever,” Knievel said, “though I used to ask him, ‘Help me make a good jump.’ I’m awfully tough to get along with, but I’ll tell you what: I am a good person. I wish there was such a thing as reincarnation.”
“If there is a heaven, I don’t know anything else I can do to get there,” he added, “and neither do you.”
Knievel was born in Montana as Robert Craig Knievel Jr., and became possibly the most famous stuntman and daredevil during his time on the bike. His rise to fame began in the 1960’s, shocking fans with his extraordinary attempts to clear strange and impossible obstacles on his “two-wheeler.”
Just two days before his death, Knievel and singer Kanye West settled the federal lawsuit Evel himself had filed, after West used the daredevil’s “trademarked image” in the music video for his song, Touch the Sky. In the clip, Kanye very obviously decked himself out in Evel’s trademarked get-up, and attempted to jump a “rocket-powered motorcycly” over a canyon - not dissimilar to Knievel’s own 1974 attempt to jump Snake River Canyon in Idaho.
Fans and admirers will no doubt remember the daredevil for his fearless stunts and professionalism. I am sure all our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this sad time.
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