WHILE THE SHOWS on MTV now may arguably be of a lesser quality than they were in the early 2000s, at least they’re a bit more tame than the likes of Dirty Sanchez and Jackass.
Now, you obviously remember Jackass, because there’s been several spin-offs and blockbuster movies made since the show first aired, but Dirty Sanchez may have slipped out of your consciousness over the last decade, despite the fact that it was far more extreme than the highly profitable American stunt show.
If you watched Dirty Sanchez as a kid or a teenager, it’s likely that you have a huge fear of falling asleep in the presence of your friends, in case you wake up to find them cutting your eyelashes off with a nail clippers or waxing your eyebrows. It starred three very distinctly named Welsh men called Pritchard (Mathew Pritchard), Dainton (Lee Dainton), Pancho (Michael Locke) and a guy with a regular name – Dan Joyce.
The show first aired on MTV in 2002, and while plenty of viewers found the entire thing gas, others were uncomfortable with how far they were pushing the boundaries of taste, never mind all of the psychological and physical boundaries they were crossing. Maxim described the show as making “Jackass look like The Teletubbies.” And it’s true. Nobody in Jackass was stapling their hand to a table or snorting the contents of an ashtray for cheap laughs, and those were the less disgusting stunts. Remember liposuction drinking games?
It’s been 17 years since the show aired, and the men who starred in it are all well into their forties now. What are they doing with themselves now? Are they still mentally destroyed by their exploits at the turn of the millennium? We decided to do a bit of research on them.
Let’s start with Mathew Pritchard (who is 45-years-old now).
You may be surprised to learn that Mathew Prichard is now a vegan. He made the switch to a plant-based diet in 2015, and in the years since has spent much of his time and energy on promoting the lifestyle on Youtube and on TV.
I’ve always thought of turning vegan because of all the fitness I do – I found out a lot of athletes are vegans. Then it started slowly making sense. I watched Cowspiracy on Netflix and it properly opened my mind. I absolutely love animals. I’ve got a dog called Lemmy , and the thought of eating Lemmy… It’s just not happening. Seeing the way animals get treated on those farms… Everything about it is just wrong. (Wales Online)
He runs a Youtube cookery series called Proper Vegan Cookin’ which looks like this:
The Youtube channel saw so much success with its recipes for vegan dinners, desserts and snacks that it landed Pritchard a new gig on TV, with his BBC vegan cooking show Dirty Vegan (which also happens to be the very first TV show dedicated to vegan cooking on the BBC). On top of the vegan stuff, Pritchard’s really into cycling and triathlons now.
In a recent interview with Wales Online, Pritchard said, “I’m in a really good place right now. I eat vegan, do triathlons, Iron Man competitions and feel really healthy, which is great, because the way I was going I was heading six feet under. Fitness is my buzz now. I’ve already been to the gym once today, and I still have a three-and-a-half bike ride to do later, along with a sea swim.
Pritchard also runs SWYD (Sleep When You’re Dead), a popular tattoo and barber shop in Cardiff, which you can have a nose at here.
If he can grow up and get his shit together, anybody can.
What about Dainton? (Who also happens to be 45 now)
His interests haven’t changed drastically since he was on Dirty Sanchez, when he was a professional skateboarder, so he runs a skate shop called Kill City Skateboards with a company that has skate shops across the UK. Last year, along with Pritchard, Dainton went on a tour with the Dirty Sanchez live show, which came to Ireland. He described it as:
More like stand-up, except we’re sitting down. Just us talking about our career and showing footage, some of it rare and unseen, before throwing it out to the audience to ask questions – no subject is out of bounds.
A quick look at his Instagram is evidence enough that Dainton’s main focus right now is his family life, and he said that his youngest daughter is a “chip of the old block”, and takes just as much pleasure from winding people up as he does. He told Wales Online, “It’s your kids who teach you all about yourself – so that must mean I’m a bloody nightmare.” However, he seems like a very proud dad on Instagram.
And Pancho?
Pancho was the chap who always fell asleep (into unusually deep sleeps, most likely from the amount of booze the whole crew was consuming during filming) and woke up to find himself being tortured, shaved, covered in flour, etc. He’s the youngest of the team, and recently celebrated his 40th birthday.
Like the rest of the lads from the show, Pancho seems to be living comfortably enough, and is still very involved in skateboarding. Pancho has experienced enough torture to last him a lifetime, so it’s not really a surprise that he’s not as public as the rest of the lads. Like Dainton, he just posts pics of his kids and skateparks. He’s also a vegetarian and into cooking, but not to the extent that Pritchard is.
Finally, there’s Dan Joyce.
This was the guy who would basically eat anything he was dared to eat. It sickens me to even type some of the things he has consumed, so it’s hard to imagine how he feels as an adult, knowing that he ate so many horrible things for dares when he was younger.
He’s not unhappy with his decision, though. He recently told Vice, “It’s good to overcome fears like that – it makes other things in life much easier.”
After Dirty Sanchez ended, Dan started a production company called Joyce Division (here’s his most recent show-reel if you have any interest in that kind of thing). He hasn’t worked with the Dirty Sanchez cast since 2007, when they filmed a Nike advertisement together, but they met for the first time in ten years last summer. He has also got a family of his own now too.
