After Mickey Rourke’s management team launched a GoFundMe campaign to save him from eviction, the 73-year-old actor has distanced himself from the “humiliating” fundraiser in a video shared on Instagram.
“This is Mickey Rourke… Somebody set up some kind of foundation or fund for me to donate money, like in a charity, and that’s not me, okay?” he began the video. “If I needed money, I wouldn’t ask for no fucking charity. I’d rather stick a gun up my ass and pull the trigger.”
The Oscar-nominated actor said that he was “frustrated” by the situation, and added that he has no idea who did it or why they did it.
“I wouldn’t know what a GoFundMe foundation is in a million years,” said Rourke, who held his dog Lucky in the video. “You know, my life is very simple, I don’t go to outside sources like that. And yeah, it is embarrassing, but I’m sure I’ll get over it like anything else. … Don’t give money, and if you gave money, get it back. I’m going to talk to my lawyer, I hate talking to him… Gonna get to the bottom of this.”
The GoFundMe launched last week and alleged that the actor had fallen almost $60,000 on rent. The fundraiser has already reached its goal of $100,000. It was launched by his manager, Kimberley Hines, and his assistant, and in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, she insisted that the fundraiser was legitimate and all the money would go to Rourke.
“In the last 48 hours, we moved him out of his house; we put him up in [a West Hollywood hotel]. The GoFundMe was done for Mickey. That money’s going to Mickey,” she said. “It’s not going to me. And if Mickey doesn’t want this money now and decides, ‘I don’t want help, it’s like it’s charity,’ the money will be returned. He doesn’t even have a key to his house. We had to get movers there, get all his clothing out, organize a new apartment for him, get a storage shed. All of this is being paid for by his management team, which is me.”
She said that she and his assistant presented the idea to him, but she doesn’t think that he “understood” what happened.
“Nobody’s trying to grift Mickey. I want him working. I don’t want him doing a GoFundMe,” she continued. “The good thing about this is that he got four movie offers since yesterday. People are emailing him movie offers now, which is great because nobody’s been calling him for a long time.”
Hines also said that Rourke hasn’t been the best at managing his money throughout his career, and noted that he’s always been “very generous” to others.
“He bought his ex-girlfriend, who had cancer, an apartment. Didn’t buy himself an apartment,” she said. “He’s given a lot of his money away to people, to friends. He’s loaned people money.”