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Not long ago, Bam Margera was at its end.
The former professional skateboarder and MTV star in “Jackass” and “Viva La Bam” had struggled with drugs and alcohol throughout his entire adult life. He has been in rehabilitation 13 times, each for 90 days. It is equal to over three years of drug treatment.
But now he comes up in two years sober and he credit his first love for skateboarding for it.
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BAM Margera is attending an event to promote “Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3+4.” (Activision)
“I realized that I don’t have to be on any medicine – skateboarding is my medicine. As long as I do a trick a day, it keeps my reason,” Margera told Pakinomist Digital in a recent interview.
Most fans grew up watching Margera Low Wild Stunts on TV and in the movies. Off-screen, he would take it to another level.
But after his co -star and best friend Ryan Dunn died in a car wreck in 2011, Margera went down a real dark path “and his fight reached the point where he was taken by” Jackass Forever “back in 2022. He still doesn’t talk with most of his former Castmates.
“In 2013, when the doctors declared my legs as drying rubber bands from alcohol abuse, I lost kind of hope for ice skating,” Margera said. “But my wife, she is a stretch trainer. I stretch for an hour a day and my 45-year-old legs feel like their 22 again. So my passion back to ice skating is completely there and I do it every day.
“I actually woke up eight days on life support with a tube down my throat with covid and pneumonia, and I found that I went into five seizures 20 minutes per piece right from staying up, not eating right, drinking too much, and that was when I decided I had to change and I had to change now,” Margera added. “When I released and lost some weight, I came back on the skateboard again and my muscle memory eventually came back. It wasn’t easy, but now that it’s back and I do it every day, a lot of tricks come easier.”
Most fans grew up watching Margera Low Wild Stunts on TV and in the movies. Off-screen, he would take it to another level. (Jason Kempin/Filmmagic/Getty Images)
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Margera admitted that even the simplest of the tricks of a professional became difficult – when he reverberated his expertise, he fell and broke his wrist “for the 15th time and hyperextended my elbow with the bone stuck out.”
“The lack of confidence after that I was afraid of doing something … but when you start skating again every day, you start learning to fall again and your chances of being injured become more slim to nobody.”
Now Margera, 44, is a playable character in a reboot of “Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 + 4.” Margera had actually missed the deadline to be in the game. But after hanging out with Hawk one day, Hawk used his powers to get him in.
“I say hello to him if I wouldn’t have called him, this wouldn’t have happened. So it’s a real blessing, everything happened as it did,” Margera said.
“It’s a real honor to be in the game. It really puts skaters on the card for people who aren’t Diehard skaters who are. There are such a handful of skaters who really kill it these days, but if I said their names you wouldn’t know them unless you were a Diehard skateboard fan. Skateboard Game!
BAM Margera plays “Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3+4th.” (Activision)
For Margera, his new lifestyle is simple: skateboard, otherwise.
“I need skateboarding in my life, otherwise I die. I need skateboarding in my life to fulfill it,” he said. “If you have no passion for anything, you lose the purpose. When you lose the purpose, you are bored and then boredom leads to drugs and alcohol. I can’t be bored. I’m totally busy teaching my skate tricks back.”
