Bam Margera's Brother Says His Addiction Got 'Violent' Amid Missing Reports

Bam Margera's brother has said that Jackass star's issues with drugs have led to "violent" behavior, as authorities continue to search for former skateboarder. Pennsylvania State Police announced on Monday that Margera, 43, was facing criminal charges. Officers were called to a Chester County residence after a domestic disturbance call was received at around 11 a.m. on Sunday. "Margera fled into a wooded area prior to the arrival of [Pennsylvania State Police] and has not been located at this time," read a police statement. The Viva La Bam star has been charged with simple assault, harassment, and four counts of terroristic threats. He has not yet been located by authorities.

Bam Margera entered the public eye in the late 1990s, releasing a number of videos of himself performing skate tricks and stunts. The videos eventually led to him joining the cast of Jackass, which aired on MTV from 2000 to 2001. The series, controversial in its time but widely admired now, featured a cast of skateboarders and actors performing outlandish, painful stunts for laughs. Its success led to a string of feature films starting in 2002, with Bam Margera starring in the first three. According to court documents, Margera's musician brother, Jess Margera, told police that the TV personality had kicked and pounded on his locked bedroom door that morning. He then punched him in the eye, nose and ear in the kitchen. Jess Margera, 44, also said that he had found a threatening note signed "Bam." Taking to Twitter on Monday, Jess Margera shared a screenshot of his Instagram posts. He wrote that his younger brother "threw some punches at me which I blocked." He added that Bam Margera "got a good one on my ear [though] it's still ringing actually [...] It's just boring at this point sadly. I just want him to get help. It's about 20 years overdue." "It's the constant death threats against my parents and other family members that I'm not going to just sit there and tolerate," Jess Margera added of his brother in a series of Instagram posts. "He has been up for about a week at this point and is hallucinating. He is a danger to himself and anyone around him and that is unacceptable." Bam Margera remains at large. One Twitter user wrote in an exchange with Jesse Margera that "Bam has really been going downhill" following the death of his Jackass co-star Ryan Dunn, who was killed in a car crash in 2011. "Bam's addiction problems definitely pre-date Ryan's accident by about 9-10 years," Jess Margera responded. "But for sure that's when 'partying too hard' turned into just trying to numb the pain, and things took a violent turn into darkness." Newsweek has reached out to the Pennsylvania State Police via email for comment. In June 2022, Bam Margera was the focus of another search, after he fled from a Florida addiction treatment center. At the time, he went missing from the Lifeskills South Florida rehab center in Deerfield Beach. His stay at the facility had been court-ordered, and it was the second instance over a span of two weeks where he had fled from rehab. The Broward County Sheriff's Office eventually confirmed in a statement that Bam Margera had been found safe and would be returning to his rehab treatment. Bam Margera previously left an unnamed rehab center in Delray Beach, Florida, days earlier. According to records, he told staff there that he was unhappy with the care he was receiving and intended to check himself into a different facility. Despite his claim, Margera did not immediately check himself into a new center and was instead located by police several days later.

The skateboarder was ordered to attend rehab following an incident in September 2021. Margera caused a disturbance at the Don CeSar Resort Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida, around the time of his 42nd birthday. Police were called to the scene after receiving reports of an "emotionally disturbed person." Bam Margera's history of alcohol and drug abuse eventually led to him being ousted from the most-recent entry in the series, 2022's Jackass Forever. In interviews, he had said that Paramount Pictures viewed him as too unstable to keep in the film, but that director Jeff Tremaine had at first fought for him to appear. Despite this, his trouble did eventually cause him to be fired from the film mid-production. He still appears in one short segment of Jackass Forever, but it is not remarked upon and his overall absence is not addressed in the film.

Read more

• Bam Margera's brother gives clue to his whereabouts as star remains missing
• 'Jackass' Star Bam Margera Found After Escaping Rehab for Second Time
• Inside Steven Crowder, Candace Owens' feud as war of words escalates
• Kellyanne Conway's daughter claps back after shading Tucker Carlson

In August 2021, Bam Margera filed a lawsuit against Paramount and Jackass star Johnny Knoxville over his dismissal. He alleged that he was forced to sign a wellness agreement under duress while in a rehabilitation center. Otherwise, he would be unable to rejoin the Jackass franchise. After signing, Bam Margera claimed, he was forced to undertake more-than-daily drug tests, scheduled and unscheduled. He also had to undergo doctor's appointments every morning on FaceTime to ensure he had taken medication, which he said left him "a shell of himself." Bam Margera said the drug tests, as well as Breathalyzer and urinalysis, could occur at "any hour of the day or night" and took a toll on his mental health. It was alleged in the suit that the complainant was let go from the film after testing positive for Adderall. However, it said he had a prescription for the pharmaceutical drug for a decade to treat his attention-deficit disorder. The lawsuit was eventually settled.