Bam Margera has spoken out about his absence from the forthcoming Jackass 5, claiming that as a result, he won’t be receiving his expected $5 million paycheck.
While Margera, 46, an original and core member of the Jackass crew, will appear in the new movie through archival footage, he will not be filming any new stunts.
Speaking recently to TMZ about the agreement, the former stuntman — who was fired from the fourth film, Jackass Forever (2022), after an alleged breach of contract related to his documented drug and alcohol use — admitted that he was still “hurt” about the whole ordeal.
“If you had a laundry list of the chain of horrible events of the two years of Covid that they put me through, spending my own money at an alarming rate for therapists, doctors and treatment and all this, only to sit me down and tell me you’re not in the movie and you’re not getting $5 million,” Margera fumed. “I watch Dateline and people kill other people for a whole lot less.”
In 2021, Margera filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against Jackass co-creators and stars Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine, along with producer Spike Jonze, Paramount Pictures and MTV Networks. He alleged that Knoxville and Tremaine “coerced” him into signing the “wellness agreement” while he was in rehab, undergoing addiction treatment. A year later, he dropped the lawsuit after reaching a private settlement.
“I have a lot of PTSD from it all,” he told TMZ, “and you know, having the title of ‘Ex-Jackass star Bam Margera,’ I have to live with that. The humiliation, the abandonment and just embarrassment of it all, I had to let it go.
“So now I’m very happy skateboarding again,” he said, sharing that “as far as I know, I don’t have to film anything new [for Jackass 5], and I don’t want to.”
“They said we’re going to sift through a lot of old footage to try and create something new,” he added, “and I said, ‘Hell yeah, go for it.’”
Asked whether he would be open to returning for new stunts, Margera replied: “I’m just too hurt by it, and I’ve already accepted the fact that I don't want anything to do with it anymore, and only time will tell, but right now at this time I don’t wanna do anything.”
He said that he still hasn’t spoken to Knoxville but remains friends with everyone else on Jackass. “But for Tremaine and Knoxville to sit me down after everything I’ve been through and just simply say, ‘You’re not in and you’re not getting the $5 million you usually get,’” he reiterated, going on to credit his original video series CKY as “50 percent of the reason Jackass exists.”
The Independent has contacted Knoxville and Tremaine’s representatives for comment.
Created by Margera and Brandon DiCamillo and released between 1999 and 2001, CKY would go on to form part of the basis for what eventually became Jackass.
“I was very angry, and now I’m not angry, I’m just hurt,” Margera acknowledged. “As of now, I don’t want to even think about reuniting with anybody. I’m doing all this stuff, for them not to say you’re not in it, well then, ‘F*** you.’ So my feelings are still ‘F*** you.’”
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