Most of us are well aware of Bam Margera and his onscreen Jackass
antics. It's also no secret that his post-MTV years have been particularly turbulent. Today,
Margera is on a path to healing, but it's proven to be his most difficult stunt yet.
Bam Margera racked up a massive fanbase during his time on MTV, but his hometown in Pennsylvania
wasn't one of them. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Margera became such a public nuisance
while filming Viva La Bam that in 2004, Pocopson Township sent him a cease-and-desist letter.
Nearly a decade and a half later, not much has changed. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that
as of February 2019, Margera was still receiving cease-and-desist letters from Pocopson, which
threatened him with potential jail time if he kept throwing parties at his infamous home, Castle Bam.
Margera claimed that Castle Bam had been dormant for nearly 10 years, which isn't exactly true,
according to a Philadelphia Inquirer writer who attended a blow-out at the mansion in
2018. As far as we can tell, he never ended up in jail over it.
In 2011, tragedy struck the Jackass cast when Bam Margera's best friend
and co-star Ryan Dunn was killed in a fiery car crash. According to ABC News,
Dunn was driving at between 132 to 140 mph with a blood alcohol concentration
more than twice the legal limit when he crashed his Porsche into a guardrail.
Both Dunn and Jackass 2 production assistant Zachary Hartwell were killed instantly in
the crash. Margera claims that he had a premonition of the accident.
"At 12:30 [local time], I just started punching out the windows of the rental
van and ripping out the speakers, and I don't even know why. I wasn't mad at anything or
anybody. If it was 12:30 there [in Arizona], that means it was exactly when he crashed."
To this day, the photos of Margera sobbing at the crash site remain
one of the most gutting things ever published in the tabloids.
The year following the release of Jackass 3.5,
Bam Margera dove head-first into the art world. It was an unexpected leap from
the raucous stunts of the skateboarder's past, but he found success nonetheless.
According to Southern Chester County Weeklies, the MTV star teamed up with local West Chester
artist John Hannafin to co-host an art show at the Chester County Historical Society. Apparently,
Margera picked up painting while recovering from an injury and hosted his first art show earlier
that year in Philadelphia. He met Hannafin after purchasing one of the artist's West
Chester-inspired paintings, and eventually started painting with him at Castle Bam.
As for inspiration, Margera told Southern Chester County Weeklies that he mostly paints, quote,
"naked chicks" and his friend Brandon Novak, who regularly guest starred on Viva La Bam. He said:
"I love painting Novak because he always has the most random quotes ever. So I'll just
paint his face and write the quote above it. If I want to paint a serious girl [portrait],
then I will. If I want to paint Novak getting out of jail with his middle finger up, I will."
Third time's the charm for Bam Margera. The star was engaged twice before proposing to
Nicole Boyd, who he married in 2013 during a benefit concert in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Margera's long, tumultuous road to love began when he started dating Jenn Rivell in 1996. According
to Zimbio, they called off their engagement in 2005 amidst rumors of an alleged affair
between the Jackass star and Jessica Simpson. The following year, Rivell allegedly broke
into Margera's house, and he filed for, quote, "Protection From Abuse," according to Us Weekly.
Following the split, Margera got together with his childhood friend Missy Rothstein,
whom he proposed to on a whim at the King of Prussia Mall. The pair's path to matrimony
was documented in the nine-episode Jackass spin-off Bam's Unholy Union,
but it only took two years to fall apart. In 2009, TMZ reported that Margera was
hospitalized following a four-day alcohol bender that was sparked by the pair's marital problems.
By 2010, the pair were openly living apart. They officially divorced in 2012.
Bam Margera's Jackass fame meant that he was defined by his hard and fast lifestyle.
This eventually manifested as a substance abuse problem. In 2017, the star told The Philadelphia
Inquirer that he drank a lot while making the show because it helped him perform stunts.
"My job is to do dumb, jackass s**t, and the more shots of Crown Royal I'd do,
the braver I'd be. Drinking helped me get paid."
Margera's addiction was only exacerbated by Ryan Dunn's death in 2011. Alcohol became
a crutch that helped him cope with his grief, and the star regularly racked up
thousands of dollars' worth of bar tabs. He was in so deep that getting
diagnosed with early pancreatitis did not serve as a much-needed wake up call.
In an interview with Vice, Margera revealed that during his lowest point,
he was basically living on a liquid diet of booze. He said:
"I would probably just wake up around 11 AM and
instantly start drinking vodka and purple Gatorade. By the end of the night,
I would probably have ten pints worth of it. It was pretty bad."
Substance abuse wasn't the only problem Bam Margera grappled with
in the wake of Ryan Dunn's death. Margera secretly struggled with bulimia, which he
used to offset the calories he consumed while binging on alcohol. In an interview with Vice,
he revealed that he learned how to purge while he was on tour with Steve-O because the
pair had to perform a stunt called the "Tequila Stuntman" that required them to vomit on command.
"I think the reason I started throwing up was because I learned how to do it and at
the end of the night I always felt like I drank too much,
and if I'm drunk, I'll stuff my f**king face with spaghetti. I would eat it, barf it all up,
and it was like, I got my fill [...] but it was all pretty much due to alcohol."
Margera's poor diet caused him to balloon up to 230 pounds,
which became such a source of shame that he stopped skateboarding.
As Bam Margera simultaneously battled an eating disorder and substance abuse problem,
he let his professional skateboarding career fall to the wayside. When he appeared on Dr.
Phil in 2019, the star revealed that he felt too old to be a professional skateboarder:
"Skateboarding is what I love. So, if I can't do that, what's the point?"
Nonetheless, skating is in Margera's blood, and he couldn't stay away for long. After losing 30
pounds, the star tested the waters in Barcelona, where he wasn't a household name. He told Vice:
"I figured if I was in Europe, people wouldn't recognize me as much here; that was the hardest
part. I wanted to skate, but I didn't want fans to see me suck. I wanted to skate with friends,
but I was intimidated by pros. So, it was hard to figure out, but being in Barcelona helped."
In 2017, Margera told The Philadelphia Inquirer that he makes an effort to,
quote, "skate three times a week."
When Bam Margera hit rock bottom in 2019, he turned to Dr. Phil for help.
"Dr. Phil, I need your help in a big, big way. My family is in shambles."
Not long after, Margera appeared on Dr. Phil, where he revealed that he had suffered from a,
quote, "nervous breakdown" and considered suicide. Dr. Phil ultimately convinced him
to submit himself to detox at Alo House Recovery. What seemed like a happy ending
was cut short when the star promptly checked himself out, got a tattoo of Dr. Phil's name
on his chest, and was involved in a bizarre incident at a luxury hotel.
According to TMZ, Margera was placed under citizen's arrest by an employee after he refused
to leave the property, where he claimed he'd been hired by a patron's wife to catch him in the midst
of an affair. When cops showed up, Margera was cuffed for trespassing. The following month,
the star revealed that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was receiving treatment.
According to TMZ, Bam Margera checked himself into rehab after getting arrested for a DUI in January
2018. For the first time, it seemed like his treatment was working, and the star remained sober
for seven months before it all came crashing down after he was robbed at gunpoint in South America.
In August, Margera took to Instagram to reveal that he was traveling alone in Colombia
when he was robbed during a cab ride from the airport. He said that the
taxi driver put a gun on his lap and used his phone to translate the phrase, quote,
"empty your wallet" from Spanish to English. Bam said:
"So, I did. And I had 500 bucks. They let me go. That was weird. Welcome to Colombia."
In the video, Margera seemed notably calm for someone just robbed at gunpoint — but that's
just a case of Instagram vs. real life. Months later, the star admitted that he was so shaken up
that he, quote, "relapsed with a couple beers" after spotting a mini bar in his hotel room.
Sobriety doesn't happen overnight, and no one knows this better than Bam Margera.
Though his DUI arrest in January 2018 seemed to be the final straw, the Jackass star spent the next
year and a half in and out of rehab. According to TMZ, he kicked off 2019 with a third rehab stint.
He left after just 10 days because he was, quote, "bored", according to CNN.
In a series of eight, handwritten letters, the star opened up about his decision to leave early:
"In rehab I am bored 50 percent of the time so that's when I figured out that when boredom sets
in and alcohol is off limits, that's when I get creative as f**k, an explosion of good ideas,
exercise, skate, workout, yoga, hike, bike way more. Because I don't sit stagnant."
Around six months later, Margera filmed his infamous Dr. Phil episode, where he spoke
candidly about his nervous breakdown and agreed to try rehab again. TMZ claimed he headed to a
treatment facility, where he planned to complete a 60 to 90 day program, but he left after just a few
days. By the end of the month, he was headed to recovery yet again following a relapse.
In 2017, Bam Margera welcomed his first child with wife Nicole Boyd, a son named Phoenix Wolf. As
it turns out, the child — and not Dr. Phil — is what might have actually saved his life. Though
the star struggled with sobriety since Boyd gave birth, he admitted during his Dr. Phil appearance:
"So you would die for him?"
"Yeah, big time."
Margera continued to work on putting his hard-partying, death-defying days behind
him. He told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2017 that he was focused on making healthier choices:
"I never thought I would do yoga, but now I'm the first one at the yoga studio with
all the soccer moms. I never thought that I would be that dude, but I am."
Bam Margera has been with the Jackass franchise since the very beginning,
but it looks like his behavior has become too wild for his castmates. According to TMZ,
Margera was reportedly fired from Jackass 4 in February 2021 because he, quote, "essentially
broke his contract" regarding his substance abuse issues and mental health treatment.
Per the tabloid, Margera's castmates and longtime friends were rooting for his success, even though
they reportedly feared his addiction would cause problems for the production. To prevent this,
they put a bunch of stipulations in his contract, allegedly requiring Margera to take
routine drug tests and breathalyzer tests, see a psychologist, take his psychiatric medicine,
and stay sober. Somewhere along the line, he reportedly didn't hold up his end of the deal.
After being shut out of Jackass 4, Margera called for a boycott in a 10-minute long,
alcohol-fueled, and since-deleted Instagram rant. According to TMZ, he revealed that he'd
had suicidal thoughts and, quote, "was forced to take" antidepressants while filming in the past.
He also admitted to, quote, "chugging a glass of wine and seven beers" prior to posting the videos.
A day later, Margera walked back on his comments, claiming he planned to visit
a bipolar specialist. This apparently wasn't enough to keep him on the film.
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.