Bam Margera has been a key member of the Jackass crew since the very beginning, and parlayed the show’s initial success into an entire career. The skateboarder went on to star in a series of reality TV shows that typically followed the template set by MTV’s early 2000s smash hit in some fashion, usually with his best friend Ryan Dunn in tow.
The 41 year-old has struggled with alcoholism for over a decade, though, and things were hugely exacerbated when Dunn was tragically killed in a car crash in 2011. Since then, Margera has been arrested several times and spent multiple stints in rehab, with his demons now costing him a role in Jackass 4. New details have revealed that Paramount were wary of having him involved in the movie in the first place, only for director Jeff Tremaine to fight in his corner, and Margera signed on under the provision that he remain clean for the entirety of filming.
However, he’s evidently struggled to maintain his sobriety, with the studio feeling as though they had no option but to let him go and remove all of his scenes from the finished movie. Margera already asked fans to boycott Jackass 4 while simultaneously saying every person that buys a ticket should Venmo him a dollar, and in a since-deleted social media video, he blasted the Paramount boardroom once more, saying:
Who the f*ck cares if I’m drunk as hell anymore? Jackass has put me through hell on f*cking wheels for a year and a half. I wrote them so many ideas, and if I’m not in the movie and they use my ideas, how do you think that will make me feel? The last thing I want to do is be in a court room with Jeff Tremaine, I love him. But f*ck man, I’m not in Jackass 4? If anybody cares about me, don’t go see their movie, because I will make mine way f*cking radder if you just Venmo me a dollar. Jackass was everything to me.”
Jackass 4 is still scheduled to hit theaters in September of this year, and given the stunt-based nature of the movie, it isn’t as though the gang will be short of footage to compensate for Bam’s absence, but having missed out on what would have been a lucrative big screen gig, there’s every chance he could wind up spiralling downwards once more.
