Jackass star Bam Margera reveals he was ‘pronounced dead’ after suffering five seizures

‘I did not know that I had gnarly Covid and my body was shutting down,’ Margera said

Jackass’s Bam Margera revealed he had a close brush with death after experiencing five seizures while suffering from Covid and pneumonia.

Last month, it was reported that the stunt performer and skateboarder had been rushed to hospital with a “very serious” case of pneumonia.

Appearing on fellow Jackass star Steve-O’s Wild Ride podcast on Thursday (5 January), Margera told his friend that “basically, I was pronounced dead on 8 December”.

“I did not know that I had gnarly Covid and my body was shutting down,” he said. “I went into four seizures, each one lasting 10 to 20 minutes. On the fourth one, I bit my tongue so hard it was nearly fallen off. It got so swollen and puffy it wouldn’t fit in my mouth. I was drinking the infected blood, which gave me pneumonia as well.”

Margera continued: “I went to the hospital and had my fifth seizure and then couldn’t breathe without a tube down my throat. I woke up five days later thinking I was there for just a couple hours. I spent eight days in there. When they took that tube out I felt like I sucked on Darth Vader’s d***.”

Alongside Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O and Margera were two of the original members of the Jackass crewmembers, performing stunts in the MTV series and subsequent film adaptations.

However, Margera did not feature in the recent sequel, Jackass Forever, claiming that he had been fired partway through production after failing a drugs test.

He initiated a lawsuit against Knoxville, as well as the film’s director Jeff Tremaine and producer Spike Jonze, and the film companies Paramount Pictures and MTV Networks.

The lawsuit was eventually settled, with Margera telling TMZ that he was “happy with the outcome and feels vindicated”.