Evel Knievel latest stunt - dying

Evel Knievel, the hard-living motorcycle daredevil whose exploits made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.Knievel’s death was confirmed by his granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs.

Knievel had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his bone-shattering spills.

Just days earlier the feud between Evel Knievel and rapper Kanye West, as the rappers 2006 ‘Touch the Sky’ music video has come to an end after West’s record label paid the former stuntman an undisclosed settlement.

 Kanye and Evel had met last Tuesday at Knievel’s home in Tampa, Florida to put a close to the law suit after Roc-A-Fella Records paid the legendary stunter to drop his charges of damaging his long-established public persona.

Knievel claimed the five and a half minute music video where West portrays himself as ‘Evel Kanyevel’ and re-enacts the historic Snake Canyon Skycycle jump was “vulgar and racially charged”.

Although the music company defended the video, claiming it was protected due to its satirical nature, Knievel sought a court injunction to stop the video from being played. However, back in July this year the pair agreed to resolve their differences through negotiation.

The meeting with West changed Knievel’s opinion of the rapper. The 69-year-old daredevil said: “I thought he was a wonderful guy and quite a gentleman.”