--- title: Bam Margera description: Explore Bam Margera's career from professional skateboarding and homemade CKY videos to MTV fame with Jackass and Viva La Bam. canonical_url: https://marktheday.info/bam-margera language: en-GB date: 2026-09-27T17:57:08Z notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://marktheday.info/bam-margera. Schema.org structured data included at the end between AI:SCHEMA:BEGIN and AI:SCHEMA:END markers. markdown-tokens: 3716 --- > **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://marktheday.info/bam-margera. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content. > **Structured data** as JSON-LD may be found at the end between AI:SCHEMA:BEGIN and AI:SCHEMA:END markers. > **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above. Bam Margera became famous during an era when MTV discovered there was an enormous audience for watching grown men attempt things that sensible people had spent centuries learning not to do. As one of the original stars of Jackass and later the central figure in Viva La Bam, Margera became internationally recognizable for skateboarding, elaborate pranks, destructive stunts and the seemingly endless torment of his parents, Phil and April. Yet television was not where his story began. Before Jackass, Margera was already an accomplished skateboarder and independent filmmaker whose CKY videos helped establish the mixture of skating, music, comedy and chaos that would eventually make him famous. Brandon Cole Margera was born on September 28, 1979, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, to Phil and April Margera. His unusual nickname arrived during childhood. According to family accounts, his grandfather called him “Bam Bam” because of the young Margera's habit of deliberately running into walls. Eventually shortened to Bam, the nickname proved remarkably prophetic. Few childhood names have ever provided a more accurate preview of the next several decades. Margera discovered skateboarding while still a child and became increasingly consumed by it. His parents supported his interest, and he spent countless hours skating in and around Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia's celebrated LOVE Park. By his teenage years, skateboarding had moved beyond recreation and toward a potential profession. He received early sponsorship from Fairman's Skate Shop in West Chester and began appearing in skate videos. His abilities on a skateboard are sometimes overshadowed by the television personality that came later. Before millions of viewers knew him as the fellow hiding inside his parents' bedroom or constructing something dangerous in the backyard, Margera had established credibility within skateboarding. His aggressive, creative style and willingness to skate difficult terrain helped attract sponsors and an audience within the skating community. He eventually became closely associated with Element Skateboards and was one of the company's most recognizable professional riders. His sponsors over the years also included brands connected with footwear, trucks, wheels and clothing. Signature skateboard decks bearing Margera's distinctive heartagram symbol became particularly popular during the height of his fame. Margera was also interested in filming. He began recording himself and his friends skateboarding, but straightforward skate footage was apparently insufficient entertainment. Pranks, stunts, comedy sketches and assorted acts of poor judgment increasingly became part of the recordings. The resulting videos developed into the CKY series, beginning with CKY: Landspeed in 1999. CKY stood for Camp Kill Yourself, a name also used by the rock band featuring Bam's older brother, Jess Margera, on drums. The videos featured Bam alongside friends including Ryan Dunn, Brandon DiCamillo, Chris Raab and Rake Yohn. They combined legitimate skateboarding footage with music, comedy and increasingly elaborate stunts and practical jokes. Long before social media allowed anybody with a telephone to broadcast questionable decisions internationally, Margera and his friends were distributing theirs on videotape and DVD. The CKY videos became enormously popular within skateboarding culture. Margera handled much of the filming and editing himself, developing skills that would later become important to his television and filmmaking work. More importantly, the videos came to the attention of Jeff Tremaine, who was helping develop a new television project combining material from the skateboarding magazine Big Brother with performers including Johnny Knoxville. That project became Jackass. Margera and Ryan Dunn joined the cast when Jackass premiered on MTV in 2000. Alongside Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Jason “Wee Man” Acuña, Dave England, Ehren McGhehey and Preston Lacy, they became part of one of television's strangest ensembles. The premise was remarkably uncomplicated: perform stunts, conduct pranks, film the results and place warnings around the program telling viewers not to imitate anything they were watching. The warnings were necessary. Margera brought a particular flavor to Jackass. His segments frequently involved skateboarding, his CKY friends and members of his family. Phil Margera became one of the show's most memorable unwilling participants, enduring surprise attacks from his son with astonishing patience. April Margera often served as the voice of maternal disbelief, arriving to discover that something in or around her home had been altered, destroyed, filled with strangers or otherwise subjected to Bam. The original Jackass television series was relatively short-lived, running from 2000 until 2002, but its cultural impact greatly exceeded its lifespan. The cast moved into feature films beginning with Jackass: The Movie in 2002. Margera subsequently appeared prominently in Jackass Number Two, Jackass 2.5, Jackass 3D and Jackass 3.5, while making only a very brief appearance in Jackass Forever years later. The success of Jackass gave Margera his own MTV series, and Viva La Bam premiered in 2003. If Jackass involved a group of men creating chaos wherever they happened to be, Viva La Bam essentially asked what would happen if Bam were given a television budget and allowed to turn his entire life into one enormous prank. Once again, Phil and April suffered magnificently. Viva La Bam revolved around Margera, his family and friends undertaking challenges, trips, elaborate practical jokes and construction projects that frequently appeared to begin with the question, “How annoyed will April be when she sees this?” Margera purchased a large property near West Chester that became known as Castle Bam, providing an ideal headquarters for the program's increasingly ambitious nonsense. The show frequently featured Ryan Dunn, Brandon DiCamillo, Rake Yohn and Raab Himself, along with Phil, April and Bam's uncle Vincent “Don Vito” Margera. Musicians and professional skateboarders regularly appeared as guests. Episodes took the group far beyond Pennsylvania, with trips around the United States and internationally. Viva La Bam ran for five seasons and became one of MTV's signature programs of the period. Margera was no longer merely one member of the Jackass ensemble; he had become a television personality capable of carrying his own series. His combination of skateboarding credibility, punk and heavy-metal aesthetics, filmmaking instincts and gleeful irresponsibility proved particularly appealing to the network's young audience. Margera also expanded into filmmaking. He co-wrote, directed and starred in the 2003 independent film Haggard, loosely inspired by the romantic troubles of Ryan Dunn. The film featured members of the CKY circle and developed a cult audience among Margera's fans. He later directed Minghags, another independent comedy involving many of the same performers. Music was deeply connected with Margera's work. He directed music videos, promoted bands and regularly incorporated rock and metal into his television projects. His friendship with Finnish musician Ville Valo of HIM helped expose the band to a wider American audience, while Margera adopted a variation of HIM's heartagram symbol as part of his own visual identity. He also launched the Viva La Bands compilation albums and tours, showcasing rock and metal groups he admired. For viewers who discovered music through skate videos and MTV rather than conventional radio, Margera became an unlikely musical tastemaker. His celebrity extended into video games. Margera appeared as a playable skateboarder in several entries in the enormously successful Tony Hawk's series, including Tony Hawk's Underground and its sequel. These appearances reinforced something occasionally forgotten during the height of his television fame: Bam Margera was not an actor pretending to skateboard for MTV. Skateboarding was the foundation upon which everything else had been built. His private life also became television material. Bam's Unholy Union, which aired in 2007, documented the preparations for his marriage to Missy Rothstein. The marriage later ended in divorce. Margera subsequently married Nicole Boyd in 2013, and they had a son, Phoenix Wolf. Their relationship later ended. In 2024, Margera married Dannii Marie. The years following the peak of his MTV career became considerably more difficult. Margera struggled publicly with alcohol and substance abuse and entered treatment on numerous occasions. His problems became increasingly visible through television appearances, interviews, social media and encounters with law enforcement. What had once appeared on television as wild behavior performed for entertainment became something far less amusing when cameras were no longer framing it as a stunt. The death of Ryan Dunn in 2011 was particularly devastating. Dunn died in a car crash in Pennsylvania along with passenger Zachary Hartwell. Dunn had been one of Margera's closest friends since long before Jackass, appearing throughout the CKY videos, television programs and films that had defined their shared careers. Margera spoke repeatedly in later years about the profound effect Dunn's death had upon him. Margera's relationship with the Jackass franchise also deteriorated. He was originally involved with Jackass Forever but was removed from the production after disputes connected with contractual requirements concerning his health and substance use. Litigation and highly public disagreements followed before the dispute was eventually settled. Margera ultimately appeared only briefly in the completed 2022 film. His struggles should not obscure the significance of what came before them, nor should the earlier comedy be used to trivialize what followed. Margera's life illustrates the uncomfortable difference between deliberately manufactured chaos and genuine instability. Jackass stunts might have looked reckless, but they were created within a professional production involving planning, medical personnel and safety precautions. Real life provides considerably fewer crash mats. In more recent years, however, Margera has spoken publicly about rebuilding his life and reconnecting with the activity that existed before television fame: skateboarding. He returned to skating after a long period away from the sport, appearing at skate events and discussing how important the board remained to his sense of identity. That return became particularly visible in 2025 when Margera appeared as a secret playable skater in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4. His inclusion reconnected him with a video-game franchise that had helped make him a familiar figure to millions of people who may never have seen him skate professionally in person. Margera has continued skating into 2026 and participating in skateboard-related projects and interviews. In recent discussions, he has emphasized that he considers himself a skateboarder first, despite the television celebrity that eventually overwhelmed that identity. It is an interesting return to the beginning: after the MTV shows, movies, music videos, tours, headlines and controversies, the skateboard remains. That matters when considering Margera's broader influence. The CKY videos arrived during an important transition in action-sports media. Skate videos had long mixed athletic performance with music and personality, but Margera pushed the formula toward entertainment built around the skaters themselves. The audience was not merely watching tricks; it was entering the strange little world inhabited by Bam, Dunn and their friends. Jackass took that idea into mainstream popular culture. The program influenced reality television, internet stunt culture and generations of amateur video creators. Its descendants are scattered across online video platforms today, although frequently without the professional production infrastructure that made the original show somewhat less suicidal than it appeared. Margera was instrumental in that development because he was creating and editing this kind of material before MTV arrived. CKY demonstrated that audiences would watch skateboarding personalities even when they weren't skateboarding. The personality, friendships, music and ridiculous adventures became as important as the tricks. There is consequently much more to Bam Margera's career than a collection of painful Jackass clips. He was a talented professional skateboarder, a self-taught filmmaker, an editor, director, television creator and music promoter who understood remarkably early that action-sports audiences were interested in the lives and personalities surrounding the sport. He also became a cautionary example of how quickly entertainment built around excess can become difficult to separate from actual life. Margera's later years have included serious personal difficulties, public disputes and repeated attempts to regain stability. His renewed connection with skateboarding therefore carries more significance than simple nostalgia. Long before MTV knew his name, Bam Margera was a kid in Pennsylvania with a skateboard and a video camera. After everything that happened next, it seems strangely appropriate that he found his way back to the board. 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