Bam Margera Is Finally Skating Again

Cue the CKY song. After an especially turbulent decade and a four-year hiatus, Bam Margera is back on a skateboard.

Before he got entangled in all the fame and distractions that came with being a Jackass, Margera was hugely influential in the skating world and helped bring it into the forefront of mainstream culture in the early '00s. At one point, his Element boards outsold Tony Hawk's skateboards.

But the tragic death of his friend and co-star Ryan Dunn in 2011 only compounded Margera's struggles with alcoholism, one that he finally admitted to on VH1's Family Therapy.

In an especially candid interview with Jenkem, Margera said he's trying to "make up for lost time," and he's returned to skating in part to get back into shape, but also to keep his head clear.

"I'm simply skating for the pleasure of having fun, not like going for it and trying to get f***ing hammers on film. It's just simply skating with the local rippers around here whether it's mini ramps, parks, transitions or some spot they want to show me. Right now, I just wanted to make sure that I had no obligations at all towards TV or any f***ing Hollywood commitments."

Margera also said that bone spurs in his feet prevented him from getting back at it sooner, but he was suddenly overcome with a need to get back on a board last October while he was editing a movie in Estonia. "It was already snowing and dark by 3PM," he said. "I was like, I'm gonna kill myself if I don't get to Barcelona and skate. So I flew to Barcelona, bought my first skateboard in 20 years... From there, we've kind of been taking a road trip all over Spain for about two months."

Although friends have been filming him whenever he skates, there are no formal plans to release anything major. "I'm just pretty much collecting footage, not for any particular reason, just to maybe to put on YouTube like 'Bam goes to Spain' or something," he said. "Element just called and said they're having a 25-year anniversary thing and they're filming a video. It comes out in June, so if I have anything video-worthy, I'll save it for that. They wrote me a real long e-mail yesterday, and they want me to come and be a part of Element again. And that sounds good to me."

It sounds good to us, too. Now that Margera has stepped away from the blinding glare of reality TV, he sounds refreshed, refocused, and ready to kickflip a career resurgence. It'll definitely be interesting to see what he can do now that he's sober, a little more mature, and not doing anything for ratings.

If you're suddenly inspired to dig out your own deck, take a look at the untold truth of Jackass, and find out where the other cast members are now.