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Not too long ago, Bam Margera was at his wits’ end.
The former professional skateboarder and MTV star of “Jackass” and “Viva La Bam” had struggled with drugs and alcohol throughout practically his entire adult life. He’s been to rehab 13 times, each for 90 days. That’s equal to over three years of drug treatment.
But now, he’s coming up on two years sober, and he credits his first love of skateboarding for it.
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Bam Margera attends an event to promote “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4.” (Activision)
“I realized I don’t need to be on any medication — skateboarding is my medication. As long as I do a trick a day, it keeps my sanity sane,” Margera told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.
Most fans grew up watching Margera doing wild stunts on TV and in the movies. Off-screen, he’d take it to a different 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 struggles reached the point where he was taken off “Jackass Forever” back in 2022. He still does not talk to the majority of his former castmates.
“In 2013, when the doctors declared my legs as dry-rotted rubber bands from alcohol abuse, I kind of lost hope about skating,” Margera said. “But my wife, she’s a stretch coach. I stretch an hour a day, and my 45-year-old legs feel like their 22 again. So, my passion back to 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 out I went into five seizures 20 minutes apiece just from staying up, not eating right, drinking too much, and that was when I decided I needed to change and I needed to change now,” Margera added. “When I detoxed and lost a little bit of weight, I got back on the skateboard again, and my muscle memory eventually came back. It was not easy, but now that it’s back and I’m doing it every day, a lot of tricks are coming way easier.”
Most fans grew up watching Margera doing wild stunts on TV and in the movies. Off-screen, he’d take it to a different level. (Jason Kempin/FilmMagic/Getty Images)
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Margera admitted that even the simplest of tricks for a pro became difficult — when he was relearning his expertise, he fell and broke his wrist “for the 15th time and hyperextended my elbow with the bone sticking out.”
“That lack of confidence after that, I was scared to do anything… But when you start skating again every day, you start learning how to fall again, and your chances of getting injured become more slim to none.”
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.
“Me saying hi to him, if I would have not called him, this would not have happened. So it’s a real blessing everything happened the way that it did,” Margera said.
“It’s a real honor to be in the game. It really puts skaters on the map for people that aren’t diehard skaters as there is. There’s such a handful of skaters that are really killing it these days, but if I said their names, you wouldn’t know them unless you were a diehard skateboard fan. To be in the game, it can get the attention of the 80-year-old grandma, ‘Oh! I know that Bam Margera! He’s in that Tony Hawk skateboard game!’ It gives you a whole bunch of street cred that if you’re in that game, you must be a real established skateboarder.”
Bam Margera plays “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4.” (Activision)
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For Margera, his new way of life is simple: Skateboard, or else.
“I need skateboarding in my life, or else I’ll die. I need skateboarding in my life in order to fulfill it,” he said. “If you don’t have any passion for anything, then you lose purpose. When you lose purpose, you get bored, and then boredom leads to drugs and alcohol. I can’t get bored. I’m completely occupied with learning my skate tricks back.”
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