Steve-O and Brandon Novak have shared an update on their friend and former Jackass co-star Bam Margera, who previously announced he’d be suing the producers of the new Jackass Forever film after being fired.
Margera filed the lawsuit against Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville Spike Jonze and Paramount Pictures, alleging he had been wrongfully dismissed from the film amid concerns over his sobriety and mental health.
Steve-O and Novak recently caught up for a chat on the Wild Ride! With Steve-O podcast, admitting that they hadn’t heard from Margera recently – but how they believe this is a ‘good thing’.
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When Steve-O asked Novak how much he was ‘in contact with Bam these days’, he replied: “Not much at all, which is good.”
Steve-O said: “I reached out to him a week ago or two weeks ago, and that was the first time I actually didn’t hear back.”
Novak reiterated how this was ‘a good thing’, adding: "Right now, knowing where he’s at and the position he’s in, no news is good news. And I know that he was in a position in his journey with his recovery that he could have a phone, briefly, he kind of earned that.
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“[…] He had the phone and because he wasn’t doing what should be done, they took the phone back from him.”
Novak said Margera is currently ‘in a programme’, while Steve-O went on to explain that he is also under a ‘guardianship’.
"It’s not a conservatorship, it’s a guardianship,” he said.
“The conservatorship has financial implications, with a conservatorship they’re in charge of all of your money and everything. With a guardianship, they kind of leave your money out of it, and the guardianship they’re just like – there's rules you have to abide by and he’s forced to be in.”
When asked how long it might last for, Steve-O simply said: “It’s still happening, we’ll leave it at that.”
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Steve-O also revealed that he used to feel envious of his old Jackass castmate, and how he wishes they could have that version of Margera back.
“Even just bringing up Bam is like a lightning rod of controversy and s*** like that,” he said.
“What I want to say is that – and I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again – I used to always be so jealous of him. He was such a f***ing ambitious, f***ing just talented… he was so good at making footage so funny, and just making great, amazing footage out of nothing even happening.
For me to get footage I’ve got to do something huge, I couldn’t just make footage out of nothing.”
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Steve-O continued: “Bam’s younger than me, he’s richer than me, he’s better looking than me, he’s more talented than me, you know.
“And all of that was true, and I just now with everything going on, I wish that we could have the Bam back who I was always so jealous of. I would love to be jealous of him again, and I want that for him.”
Novak, who has a long history of drug addiction before going sober in 2015, said Margera is his ‘best friend in the world’, recalling how he had helped him in the past.
"If it wasn’t for him, I’d be buried in that plot that my mother bought me in Baltimore. He was the one that stopped what he was doing and reached out to me, and said, ‘Yo, come to Westchester, live with me and skate again’.
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Steve-O then asked if this meant Bam had ‘enabled’ him in the ‘big picture’, as this move brought him ‘enough fame and recognition’ to ‘keep staying sick’, to which Novak replied: “But I don’t believe that he could comprehend what was going on […] if you weigh out the scales of justice, it’s that in that world, or being homeless shooting up bleach in Baltimore.”
Featured Image Credit: AlamyTopics: Celebrity, Bam Margera, Jackass, Steve-O