How Bam Margera returned for new Jackass after threatening to fight Johnny Knoxville in public feud
Jackass: Best and Last is finally here, and to the shock of many fans of the franchise it features the return of Bam Margera.
Best and Last will be the final Jackass film in the franchise, with this meaning that reportedly there will be a large amount of archival footage as opposed to new stunts, something that has been criticised.
Bam has not appeared in the series since Jackass 3D after being fired midway through production however for violating a ‘wellness agreement’ which was put in place due to his well-documented substance abuse issues. He allegedly tested positive for Adderall.
The Jackass star ended up suing Johnny Knoxville and the series co-creator Jeff Tremaine over this, stating that his civil rights were violated as part of the move.
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He later told Cinemablend in 2025: “What they did to me, making me go to treatment and paying for it, and then not putting me in a movie.
“You know, I had to go to court over it and I just, you couldn't offer me enough money to want to do another Jackass with them. The damage has been done.”
The feud got so bad that he even threatened to fight Knoxville, offering to get into a bare knuckle boxing match with him.
In a video on Instagram he compared the wellness agreement he was made to sign to a ‘death waiver’, adding: “Jeff Tremaine is too much of a p***y to get in the ring with me, but Knoxville, if I double dog dare him, he says if I double dog dare anything he'll do it."
He repeatedly called Knoxville a ‘p***y’, something he says riles the stuntman turned actor up, adding that he wants to fight without gloves ‘so I can ring, ring, ring, one, two, three, let's go, I f**k you up.’
Speaking to Howie Mandel in 2024, before Best and Last was announced, Knoxville said he hadn’t spoken to Bam since he was fired from Jackass Forever.
He continued, saying: “I can't control any of that I can just control my side. I love Bam I wish him well I hope I understand I think he's sober now, for a little bit, and I hope that continues and… I wish him nothing but the best.”
In an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this year, he added: “I hear he’s doing a lot better and that makes me happy, because we’ve been through so much together and I love him. I’m happy he’s doing well.”
This came after the news however that Margera was returning for the film, but not to film any new stunts.
He spoke to TMZ about this, confirming that he had struck a deal to appear in the film via archival footage, but he has not put the feud to bed clearly.
He said: “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 five million dollars... I watch Dateline and people kill people for a whole lot less.
“I have a lot of PTSD from it all and just having the title now of 'ex-Jackass star Bam Margera,' I have to live with that.
"The humiliation, the abandonment and just the embarrassment of it all, I had to let it go."
He said he was ‘too hurt by it’ to do anything new, adding: “They said we're going to sift through a lot of old footage to try to create something new and I said, 'Hell yeah, go for it’.
“"Because I remember filming so much crazy s**t that never made it to the movie simply because it was just too long or too gnarly.
"But, I mean, I said yeah. Have at it."
Jackass: Best and Last is in cinemas now.
Topics: Jackass, Bam Margera, TV and Film, Film
Michael Slavin