Is Bam Margera having a mental health crisis after ‘Jackass’ boycott?
Bam Margera, the professional skater who made a name for himself from MTV’s Jackass, has checked himself into a mental facility after he posted a string of videos alleging he was locked out of Jackass 4. Margera proceeded to release a slew of videos calling for the film’s boycott. After concerned fans called him out on Twitter, Bam Margera released a video on his Instagram explaining the situation.
“I have some good news. I realize that I’m manic bipolar and yesterday, I had to go batsh*t f***ing bonkers crazy for not knowing for a year and a half whether we’re doing Jackass or not,” he said in a black & white video on Instagram. “This way,” he said, explaining his decision, “there will be no bad blood”. He told fans he was going to see a bipolar specialist the following day.
That said, this isn’t the first time Bam Margera has reportedly struggled with mental health issues. Let’s dive into this new part of the saga.
Jackass origins
Bam Margera popped up on adolescents’ radars when he starred alongside Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Wee Man, and a cast of Peter Pans whose show & movie franchise coined the term Jackass stunts. In the days before iPhones & social media, these stuntmen were able to reach a wide audience by doing idiotic things like tattooing each other in the back of a pickup truck or lighting firecrackers in their butts.
Bam Margera seemed to do well for himself outside the franchise. He earned his own spinoff show Viva La Bam, where he endlessly pranked his dad Phil, mom April, and his uncle, who became a character himself: Don Vito.
Don Vito was actually legally forbidden from being his character by a judge after he was found guilty of molesting two underage girls. His defense team claimed Vito was playing his character from Viva La Bam, prompting the judge’s ruling. The prosecution claimed Vito was intoxicated during the incident. Vincent “Vito” Margera passed away in 2015 after battling liver & kidney failure.
History of alcohol & drug abuse
However, things took a turn for the worse when Bam Margera’s lifelong friend Ryan Dunn died in a horrific car accident. The accident was attributed to alcohol. Many members of the Jackass crew reported struggling with alcohol & painkiller addictions, which they claimed began with taking painkillers to treat injuries on the show.
Raab Himself, Bam Margera’s Jackass costar, told Page Six: “I did a lot of cocaine and I drank my ass off pretty much seven days a week. [Jackass] was a perfect time for my addiction to manifest . . . it’s an obsessive lifestyle. I didn’t realize how much I became a slave to drugs and alcohol.”
Bam Margera has been arrested and in & out of rehab for the last decade. On Vh1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jen, Margera told Dr. Jen “When I really started drinking, I was probably 24, 25 . . . It just slowly became waking up and sipping on a drink as soon as I got up . . . one is too many but a thousand is never enough.”
Bam Margera also appeared on The Dr. Phil Show in 2019 to address his addiction & family problems.
Bam’s own version?
“I’m not in ‘Jackass 4,’ and if anybody cares about me, don’t go see their movie because I will make mine way f–king radder if you just Venmo me a dollar,” Margera said in a video preserved by TMZ. Bam Margera claimed that the producers of the fourth installment took his ideas, but didn’t credit him or let him be a part of the franchise – as of now, he’s still listed on IMDb as a cast member.
Bam Margera also told his fans he’d be making his own version of Jackass, posting crudely drawn ideas for stunts on his Instagram, including a pee pit under a trampoline.
It’s still unclear whether or not Bam Margera will be involved in Jackass 4, which is slated to be released in September. Given Margera’s many, many posts about his lack of involvement, and Paramount’s lack of comment, it may still be up in the air or pending whether Margera goes back to treatment. According to TMZ, Margera consumed alcohol before filming his now-deleted videos.
