Bam Margera ‘just needs to settle down and get it straight,’ his mother says as search continues

As Pennsylvania State Police continue to search for Bam Margera, the Jackass star’s mother, April Margera, is speaking out, saying that the West Chester native “just needs to settle down and get it straight.”

“We all love him so much, and we just want to help him, and we are not against him,” April Margera told Fox News on Tuesday. “We just want to try to get him help.”

Authorities have been searching for Margera, 43, since Sunday, when police responded to a disturbance on the 400 block of Hickory Hill Road in Pocopson Township. Margera allegedly punched his brother, Jesse, and threatened to kill all the occupants of the house, including his father, Phil.

Police have issued an arrest warrant for Margera, on several misdemeanor counts, including making terroristic threats to his father, brother, and two others, as well as simple assault and harassment. Police have been unable to locate Margera since he fled the scene Sunday.

Margera’s mother told Fox News that Margera has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and hasn’t been taking his medication. The star, his mother said, “just thinks he’s running away from his troubles.”

“He just needs to settle down and get it straight, and I think it’s just hard for him to do without being on his medication and trying to wrangle him,” she said. “We just want him to get better. I mean, the things that he’s doing are not criminal in his mind.”

April Margera added that she is not sure of where Margera may have gone since Sunday, and that he did not take any vehicles owned by the family. She does not believe that he remained in the West Chester area, and the family has not yet heard from anyone about his whereabouts.

Margera has long struggled with substance use disorder and alcoholism, and recently has been in the news in a string of substance-related incidents. In March, he was arrested in connection to a domestic violence incident in which he allegedly kicked an unidentified woman in Escondido, Calif. Later that same month, he was arrested on public intoxication charges in Burbank.

Margera has been in and out of rehab facilities for years, and his sobriety issues have often played out publicly. Part of the issue, his mother said, is that the rehab system may not be geared toward celebrities.

“It’s really just a breakdown of the system,” his mother said. “Sometimes when you’re a celebrity, it’s like you get special treatment in rehabs, and it doesn’t help.”

April Margera added that her son “needs to just grab hold of sobriety and get back to himself and not this hurt and pain that he feels he can’t seem to mask other than to drink it away.”

Margera’s struggles, while highly publicized, are not unusual, his mother said.

“I think he’s just been painted as a monster, and anybody on drugs turns into a monster: daughters, children, parents,” she said. “I’ve seen it tear a million people apart, and the fact that I have tons of people come up to me every day and say, ‘I’m in the same shoes as yours — mine’s just not on television.’”

According to an affidavit from the incident on Sunday, Margera’s brother said that Margera banged on his locked bedroom door early on Sunday, and left a signed note that threatened them if they thought about calling the police. Jesse Margera added that he then found the Jackass star urinating into the kitchen sink. The situation escalated to blows, with Bam Margera striking his brother in the right side of his face.

Jesse Margera has since responded to fans on social media, downplaying his injuries as “no big whoop.” He added that he wants Bam Margera, who he said “has been up for about a week at this point and is hallucinating,” to get help, which is “about 20 years overdue.”

“It’s the constant death threats against my parents and other family members that I’m not going to just sit there and tolerate,” Jesse wrote online. “He is a danger to himself and anyone around him and that is unacceptable.”