Do we like Ryan Dunn?
Our score: 5 out of 10. No harmful words turned up, but a fatal crash that police tied to drinking and speed leaves the good-person side complicated.
Ryan Dunn was one of the faces of MTV's Jackass, appearing across the show and its films. He also turned up in Bam Margera's shows, hosted his own MTV series Homewrecker, and had just started on G4's Proving Ground when he died in 2011. One writer called him “a merry prankster of the first order.”
He died at 34 in a fiery crash in suburban Philadelphia, when his Porsche left the road in the early hours of 20 June 2011. A passenger also died. Johnny Knoxville wrote, “Today I lost my brother Ryan Dunn,” and MTV said the Jackass brotherhood would never be the same.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, as reported by TheWrap, found he had 23 driving citations in the 13 years before the crash, including 10 for speeding or careless driving. He was also arrested for DUI in 2005, and court records show the charges were dropped after he completed a probationary program. In 2012 the passenger's parents sued his estate and the bar, alleging the bar served a visibly intoxicated man. The articles we read reported no outcome.
On the harm test, we found nothing: no digs at LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet, and no slide into conspiracy theories. The record is mostly about the crash, so treat that as thin rather than a glowing reference. After his death, friends held a fundraiser at a West Chester venue in his and the passenger's name, with proceeds going to the passenger's widow.
Nothing new has turned up on him lately beyond the Jackass franchise's return, announced for June 2026. So it comes down to this: a funny, well-loved bloke, and a final night that was entirely avoidable. We can't give him a clean sheet on the good-person side, but nothing suggests he was cruel to anyone.