Bam Margera

Brandon Cole "Bam" Margera (/mɑːrˈdʒɛərə/ mar-JAIR-ə; born September 28, 1979) is an American former professional skateboarder, stunt performer, television personality, and filmmaker. He rose to prominence in the early 2000s as one of the stars of the MTV reality stunt show Jackass and subsequent films. He also created the spin-off shows Viva La Bam (2003–2006), Bam's Unholy Union (2007), Bam's World Domination (2010), and Bam's Bad Ass Game Show (2014), and co-wrote and directed the films Haggard (2003), and Minghags (2009).

Since the mid-2000s, Margera has struggled with alcoholism and subsequent legal troubles. Following the death of childhood friend Ryan Dunn and the end of his television projects in 2011–12, Margera's drinking and drug use intensified. In 2020, he was fired from the production of Jackass Forever (2022) due to his drug and alcohol issues.

Margera was born on September 28, 1979, and raised in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the son of April and Phil Margera. He is the younger brother of rock musician Jess Margera and the nephew of television personality Vincent "Don Vito" Margera. When Margera was three years old, his grandfather nicknamed him "Bam Bam" after noticing his habit of purposely running into walls; over time, that nickname was shortened to "Bam" by his schoolmates. Before their television fame, Margera's parents, April and Phil, worked as a hairdresser and baker, respectively.

Margera received his first video camera from his father as a gift in 1993 after he enrolled in a digital media class at his school with childhood friend Chris Raab. It was here that Margera and Raab met future collaborators and close friends Art Webb, Brandon DiCamillo, and Ryan Dunn. Soon after, they began shooting homemade videos of Margera and his friends skateboarding and doing stunts, which eventually evolved into the CKY video series. CKY stands for "Camp Kill Yourself", a name shared with his brother Jess Margera's band, CKY, which was named as a tribute to the film Sleepaway Camp (1983).

In 1994, Margera dropped out of school after Chris Raab was expelled, but was homeschooled by his mother and received his GED. On September 21, 1995, Margera, his brother Jess, Dunn and Raab were all involved in a serious car accident near their hometown of West Chester, PA. In later interviews, Margera revealed that Raab had "forced him" to wear a seatbelt as the car was going nearly 100 mph (160 km/h), and that doing so probably saved his life. Other than Jess suffering a broken arm, none of the four were seriously injured.

Following years of recording footage and editing, Margera independently released the first CKY film, then titled CKY: Landspeed, in 1999. The film is a collection of stunts and pranks interspersed with skateboarding tricks and footage set to music by CKY. Subsequent releases of the film have removed the Landspeed subtitle. In the following years, the sequels CKY2K, CKY3 and CKY4: The Latest and Greatest were released. These early videos feature many of Margera's family members, including his parents and brother, as well as his close friends, including Dunn, Raab, DiCamillo, Rake Yohn and Brandon Novak, who formed a loose collective known as the CKY crew. During this period, the videos and band projects were heavily interlinked, with two of the band's albums being unofficial soundtracks to the videos.

Following CKY's success, particularly within the skateboarding community, former Big Brother editor Jeff Tremaine took notice of Margera's videos and recruited he and Ryan Dunn into the main team that would eventually become MTV's Jackass. Both Margera and Dunn became mainstays of the cast, while the other CKY crew members played supporting roles to various degrees. In the original television series, several of the featured stunts were taken directly from the CKY videos. Margera would go on to appear in Jackass: The Movie (2002), Jackass Number Two (2006), Jackass 2.5 (2007), Jackass 3D (2010), and Jackass 3.5 (2011), and would have a very minor appearance in Jackass Forever (2022). Several skits in the first Jackass movie were CKY-style pieces filmed in and around West Chester, PA, while similar scenes in the second movie were forced to be removed after the arrest and conviction of Margera's uncle Vincent Margera (also known as Don Vito) for inappropriately touching two minors.

After the Jackass series ended in 2001, Margera was approached by MTV and was given his own series, Viva La Bam, which ran for five seasons from 2003 to 2005. A mixture of stunts and reality, the show followed Margera, his family and the CKY crew as they performed various stunts and missions, while also offering insight into their daily lives. The show was primarily filmed in West Chester, but also visited New Orleans, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Brazil, Finland, Mexico, Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Monaco, and Transylvania. In addition to the regular series, there was also a "lost" episode, which was included on the Viva La Bands CD and was originally filmed in Iceland for the first season. A two-part special episode, "Viva La Spring Break", aired in 2006.