Credit: Alamy

So much has happened to Kanye West across his life – and honestly, so much Kanye West has happened to the world in return – that often it can feel like a random word generator of who he had managed to either annoy or befriend across the years of his decades-long career.

In this instance, it is Evel Knievel. Yep, that guy. The American professional daredevil who turned motorcycle jumping into a spectacle, Knievel was so successful as a stunt performer that he became an international legend within his own right. The power of a successful stage name!

So you have one Kanye West, one Evel Knievel, and instead of walking into a bar, the latter sues the former. Yep: in 2006, Knievel sued West over the “Touch the Sky” music video the rapper made, in which Kanye becomes “Evel Kanyevel” and attempts to jump a motorcycle, which is powered by a rocket, over a canyon. Fun time to be a lawyer.

Knievel filed a lawsuit in December that year, claiming infringement on his trademark name and likeness. In the lawsuit, the showman also claims the “vulgar and offensive” images depicted in the video had damaged his reputation. The likeness is obvious: West wears the Knievel trademark star-studded jumpsuit and then jumps a canyon in a vehicle “visually indistinguishable” from the one used by Knievel in his failed attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in 1974, the lawsuit said.

The 1974 stunt was the daredevil’s most famous and controversial action of his career thus far: he was to attempt to jump Idaho’s Snake River Canyon, a deep volcanic gorge that stretches for miles. It is notably wide and dramatic, and millions across the world watched on television as Knievel, riding on a steam-powered rocket, attempted to jump it.

But the parachute deployed prematurely, sending the craft down into the canyon. Luckily, Knievel survived with minor injuries, referring to the event as a “successful failure”. The jump has since become legendary for his ambition and his showmanship.

So you can imagine what Knievel would have to say about Kanye mimicking it for a music video some odd decades later. “That video that Kanye West put out is the most worthless piece of crap I’ve ever seen in my life, and he uses my image to catapult himself on the public,” the 68-year-old daredevil said.

The video also features Pamela Anderson as West’s girlfriend. According to the lawsuit, the music video has “vulgar and offensive sexual images, language and conduct involving ‘Evel Kanyevel’ and women apparently trying to gain his sexual interest.”

Kanye’s lawyers said that the video was satire and was protected under the banner of free speech. In 2007, the two amicably settled the lawsuit out of court, agreeing not to disclose the terms.

And in November that year, Knievel sadly passed away aged 69, after suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis for years. “It’s been coming for years, but you just don’t expect it. Superman just doesn’t die, right?” his friend reported Knievel having said. Matthew McConaughey gave the eulogy at his funeral, and fireworks exploded in the night sky as pallbearers carried the industry legend’s casket.