Bam Margera started his career doing stunts as part of the CKY Crew in home videos. Soon after, he joined Jeff Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville and Spike Jonze for Jackass, a new MTV series with pranks and stunts of a similar fashion.
This series only lasted for a couple of years, but spawned multiple movies and spin-offs, including Knoxville's Bad Grandpa character.
The latest movie, Jackass Forever, was in production in 2020 before it was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but started up again in late 2020.
It was announced Margera, who was a cast member, was no longer involved in February 2021. This was followed by a series of videos, in which he expressed his anger with the production team, particularly Knoxville, Tremaine and Jonze.
On now-deleted Instagram videos, Margera asked fans to boycott the film and instead help him make a competing movie through donations.
He also called the movie franchise his "life" before crying and vomiting, and said his wife Nikki Margera found him "on the interweb typing in how to tie a noose" during the lockdown, showing his fragile state of mind before filming began.
They moved to Oceanside, California, after this point, but his return to Jackass was only for a short time.
Now, Margera has filed a lawsuit against Knoxville, Jonze and Tremaine and production companies Gorilla Flicks and Dickhouse Productions, as well as MTV and Paramount, for wrongful dismissal.
In the lawsuit, Margera claims he was wrongly dismissed from production in August 2020, as well as believing he was discriminated against for his historical mental health struggles.
In court documents, Margera claims he was forced to sign a Wellness Agreement under duress while in a rehabilitation center, otherwise he would be unable to rejoin the Jackass franchise.
After signing, Margera claims he was forced to undertake more-than daily drug tests, scheduled and unscheduled, and had to do forced doctor's appointments every morning on FaceTime to ensure he had taken medication, which he said left him "a shell of himself."
He claimed the drug tests, as well as breathalyzer and urinalysis, could occur at "any hour of the day or night" and took a toll on his mental health.
In August 2020, court documents say Margera was dismissed from the movie due to his having broken the Wellness Agreement, which he fiercely denies.
The reason for his dismissal, the court documents continue, was the appearance of Adderall in a drug test, which Margera claims is prescription for attention deficit disorder, which the production team knew about previously.
The lawsuit claims: "Paramount's inhumane treatment of Margera cannot be countenanced. Margera was made to endure psychological torture in the form of a sham Wellness Agreement, and then ultimately terminated for his protected class status due to his medical condition, and his complaints about Defendants' discriminatory conduct towards him.
"Indeed, Margera was the only Jackass co-star terminated from the franchise for taking medication that he was prescribed, in order to treat his well-documented medical conditions."
Margera is seeking redress for breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress and copyright infringement, as he claims to have been the person who came up with Jackass and is the creator of the concept of the franchise.
In a statement released at the time of the lawsuit, Margera said: "I am pissed-off, angry, hurt, and shattered that Johnny, Jeff, Spike and the studios and producers ripped off my creativity, content, and stunts to make this movie, fired me without justification, and refuse to pay for my work; I created this franchise before any of these guys ever got involved.
"My lawsuit isn't just about compensation. It's about treating people with mental health and addiction issues in an honest manner and not taking advantage of their disabilities to rip them off."
Newsweek has approached the defendants for comment.
