Bam Margera's life has had its ups and downs – and we're not talking about skateboarding.
From hidden sex tapes to tumultuous relationships, this is the untold truth of Bam Margera.
Margera's future as a daredevil seemed set in stone from an early age.
As a child, he's said to have picked up the habit of running straight into walls and jumping
off coffee tables in his family home.
His grandfather, having witnessed this self-destructive behavior on several occasions, started to
call him Bam Bam, which was eventually shortened to Bam.
The name stuck, and after he became known to millions through his bone-crunching exploits
on MTV he decided to make it his legal name.
But after completing all of the necessary paperwork, he had second thoughts about filing
it.
He was ultimately persuaded by his father Phil to remain – legally, at least – Brandon
Cole Margera.
Bam may not be royalty, but he is the king of his castle – well, sort of.
After his work on TV earned him enough cash to make his dream home a reality, Margera
purchased a Gothic-style mansion in his home state of Pennsylvania and rechristened it
Castle Bam, adding a host of new features to the property to make himself and his crew
of co-conspirators more comfortable.
The additions included a pirate-themed bar, a treetop casino (that Margera and his friends
later destroyed with cannonballs), and, of course, a huge skate park.
Before the "Jackass" crew formed up, Margera filmed and edited his own video series with
his friends from the CKY Crew; the name stands for "Camp Kill Yourself," which also the name
of Margera's older brother Jess' band.
"The Latest and Greatest" was the last installment in the cult video series,
though it was the first one made after Margera hit the mainstream, meaning that he had access
to equipment that was previously too expensive.
The production value saw a marked improvement from previous "CKY" offerings, though it wasn't
the shiny new look of the film that had fans talking.
On some copies of the DVD, Margera decided to include a clip of himself and his then-fiancée
having sex as an Easter egg hidden at the end of the movie.
Margera was admitted to Chester County Hospital with nasty head injuries on June 12, 2010,
after an altercation outside his suburban nightclub, The Note, left him bleeding and
unconscious on the pavement.
The incident took place when West Chester resident Elizabeth Ray, whose home shares
a wall with Margera's club, saw the "Jackass" star leave the premises for a cigarette at
around 2 a.m. and decided to confront him about the noise that had been keeping her
awake.
Things escalated very quickly, according to Margera's friend Tammy Palumbo.
Palumbo, who was with Margera when the attack reportedly took place, claims he walked away
from the argument thinking it was over when Ray cracked him over the back of the head
with a pipe-like object.
Ray is said to have continued her attack verbally as Palumbo cradled Margera's gashed and bloodied
head, supposedly yelling, quote, "I'll hit him again and I'll make sure I kill him next
time."
Margera's concussion meant he had to miss the shooting of the epic final scene in the
"Jackass 3D" movie.
In the end, Ray was found guilty of aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.
She was spared prison time, however, with Margera himself urging the district attorney
to allow Ray to serve her time on probation after learning that she was a caregiver for
her housebound mother.
After being hitched as a part of the TV show Bam's Unholy Union, Margera and Missy Rothstein
ended their so-called unholy union in 2012, five years after getting hitched in front
of millions of viewers on their MTV show.
Margera didn't have to wait too long to give marriage a second shot, tying the knot with
Nicole Boyd in 2013 during the Random Hero Festival, an event he held in Reykjavik, Iceland
in honor of his late friend Ryan Dunn.
It was far from a fairytale Icelandic wedding, however, with the former "Jackass" star spending
the evening performing with his band F–kface Unstoppable.
Margera's wedding attire was equally unorthodox: he chose to walk down the makeshift aisle
wearing a hoodie along with something MTV described as some kind of modified Skeletor costume.
From one memorable experience at an Icelandic music festival to another Margera would sooner forget.
In 2015, videos emerged of him being attacked by rappers Gísli Pálmi and Egill "Tiny"
Thorarensen in the backstage area of the Secret Solstice Festival, with the prominent Icelandic
rappers landing several punches on Margera before he was pulled away and fell to the
ground.
According to a video that Margera recorded shortly after the assault, the musicians allegedly
set about him at the behest of Leon Hill, Margera's former head of digital marketing
and the current Secret Solstice marketing director.
Margera claimed Hill owed him money and accused him of fudging the numbers on his YouTube channel.
Hill, however, responded to the allegations with a statement of his own that detailed
the series of events leading to the fight, which he claims Margera instigated.
In the statement Hill blames the lack of good material for Margera's YouTube channel underperforming.
The tragic death of Ryan Dunn understandably changed Margera's life forever.The extent
to which it impacted Margera was made painfully clear when he made his return to reality TV
in 2016, appearing alongside his mother April on the VH1 series "Family Therapy with Dr.
Jenn."
During the interview Margera admitted to drinking to forget rather than for the fun of it, and
revealed he'd struggled with suicidal thoughts and depression.
April Margera, who has appeared numerous times in her son's various videos and TV shows over
the years, was reduced to tears as she recounted a Christmas argument in which her son told
her he would die before her—likely by drowning in his own swimming pool.
Margera's time in the "Family Therapy" house led to him getting sober for the first time
in his adult life, spurred on by the support of Dr. Jenn Mann and Bam's mother April.
After the show wrapped, Margera managed to go four months without a drink, though he
fell off the wagon while attending an art show.
In a follow-up interview with VH1, April revealed that her son's slip was orchestrated by one
of his friends, who offered him a can of Coke that was actually full of booze.
Despite the setback, she insisted that Margera is still trying to stay sober and was considering
entering himself into rehab.
"'Skate or die, dude!'
And I just f—in' stopped like, 'I'd rather skate!'"
In early 2017, word surfaced that Margera was back on the skateboard after a lengthy
layoff that, as he later explained in an interview with Jenkem Magazine, stemmed from an assortment
of problems—including bone spurs in his feet, the pressures of his celebrity status
in the skating community, and the knowledge that he couldn't safely skate until he'd dealt
with his drinking problem.
Finding himself on an editing job in Estonia during the dark of winter, he felt himself
reach the end of his rope, and felt the urge to get to Barcelona for the sake of going
skating.
He got on a plane, bought a new board, and hooked up with his friend, fellow skater,
and Barcelona resident Thomas Winkle, who promptly started filming Margera's exploits.
"I rented a car and we just went from town to town meeting up with the locals and skating
everything."
If that sounds like a nice vacation, well, it probably was—but it wasn't all fun and
games.
Margera's skating holiday served a larger purpose by helping him stay sober – for
a while, at least.
As he confessed in the interview with Jenkem,
"It's been a real struggle for me to stay off the alcohol.
But just as long you're surrounded by good people and you have something to do, you'll
be good.
[...] I know being in Spain is the best place for me right now to not drink."
Bam Margera managed to get sober and rediscover his love of skateboarding during his time
in beautiful Barcelona, but addiction reared its ugly head once more when he returned to
the United States.
In January 2018, the famous daredevil got hit with a DUI in California.
Officers noticed him using his phone at the wheel and smelled alcohol on his breath after
pulling him over for questioning.
Speaking to Page Six, his mother, April Margera, begged for understanding, saying,
"Don't be so quick to judge other people.
Everybody has a different story, and everybody is going through different things.
It's not an instant fix."
Margera checked into rehab for a third time following the DUI arrest (for which he got
probation), telling his Instagram followers that he was, quote, "hoping the term 3rd time
is a charm is true."
Sadly, another relapse was just around the corner, as the onetime daredevil turned to
alcohol once more after being robbed in Colombia.
After arriving in Cartagena alone, he claimed he got into a taxi at the airport – and
then things got scary.
"I couldn't speak Spanish, they couldn't speak English, and they translated on their phone
for me to read, 'Empty your wallet,' as they put a gun on their lap."
Margera said he handed over $500, and was let go.
He described the incident as, quote, "weird."
Bam Margera was reportedly fired from the fourth "Jackass" film after allegedly failing
to adhere to a so-called "Wellness Agreement" that required him to stay sober, among other
conditions, during the production of the film.
After his firing from the project, Margera filed a lawsuit which threatened to derail
the release of the fourth "Jackass" movie.
Johnny Knoxville, who was named in the lawsuit, told Variety in an interview that the whole
affair with Bam was "heartbreaking."
He explained,
"We wanted him all throughout the movie, but unfortunately that's not the way it worked
out.
I love Bam.
We all love Bam.
He's our brother, you know?
You just hope that he takes it upon himself to get the help that he needs, because we
all care about him a lot."
Things quickly went from bad to worse after Bam Margera was given the boot from "Jackass Forever."
Jeff Tremaine, one of the masterminds behind the franchise and the director of the fourth
"Jackass" film, got a restraining order against his former friend after he began threatening
him and his family, legal documents seen by People revealed.
Bam's behavior, Tremaine alleged, left him "in great fear for [his] and [his] family's
personal safety," he told the courts, adding that Margera said, quote, "that he has 'powers
as a wizard' and 'can create and strike lightning' while speaking at times using numbers instead
of English."
The judge ordered Margera to stay away from Tremaine and his family for three years.
Some of the drama played out on social media for the world to see.
When Margera said that his former friends had betrayed, abandoned, and rejected him,
“Jackass" alum Steve-O chimed in to defend the people he was accusing.
Responding to Margera on social media, Steve-O wrote,
"Bam — the two people you're saying wronged you (Knoxville and Tremaine) are the same
two people who organized the intervention which saved my life.
Everyone bent over backwards to get you in the movie, and all you had to do was not get
loaded.
[...] We all love you every bit as much as we all say we do, but nobody who really loves
you can enable or encourage you to stay sick."
In December 2017, just two days before Christmas, Bam Margera's wife Nikki gave birth to a son,
Phoenix Wolf Margera.
In September 2021, news broke that Nikki filed court documents asking for full custody of
their son.
It seems as though the relationship fell apart following Bam's experience with addiction,
but Nikki doesn't appear to have given up on him just yet.
TMZ noted that though she filed for custody, she did not also file for divorce, which is
uncommon.
According to the gossip site, Nikki wants Bam to be able to visit their son, with a
monitor present.
According to TMZ, Nikki is happy for Bam to pick his own monitor, but she will have to
approve of that person first.
For all his troubles, Bam clearly adores his son, who appears regularly in his Instagram
feed.
Hopefully Bam and fam can get beyond the hard times.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, please call the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Administration's 24/7 National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
That's 1-800-662-4357.