Mickey Rourke is doubling down on his distaste for a fundraiser that quickly raised more than $100,000 in his name, calling it a disgraceful “scam” and a “cruel, vicious lie” and promising “serious repercussions for [the] individual who did something so bad to him.”
At the same time, the fundraiser, intended to keep Rourke in his home as he faced eviction for nearly $60,000 in unpaid rent, has been canceled and others are now using the actor's name to boost their more anonymous efforts.
(A Friday morning search for “Mickey Rourke” on GoFundMe turned up more than a dozen campaigns extracting search value from the actor's high-profile situation, but the campaign created for the “9½ Weeks” actor was nowhere to be found.)
The GoFundMe was put on pause last week after more than $100,000 was raised in two days, and Rourke's manager Kimberly Hines wrote, “Thank you so much for your generosity and for supporting Mickey during this time. Your support truly means a lot to us and we are grateful for every donation. We remain committed to finding a solution and are working with Mickey to determine next steps.”
Rejecting donations, Rourke called the fundraiser “humiliating” and “really fucking embarrassing” in a video posted last week, saying he didn't need the money.
“I wouldn't know what a GoFund was in a million years,” said the actor, 73, who starred in the 1980s in films like “Barfly” and “Angel Heart” and was nominated for an Oscar for his work in 2008's “The Wrestler.” “My life is very simple and I don't turn to outside sources like that.”
Later in the video he said he would “never ask strangers or fans for a nickel. That's not my style.”
Hines might disagree, as she said she is the one who has been advancing the money to cover Rourke's move from the Beverly Grove home to a hotel and then to an apartment in Koreatown.
Hines' assistant's name was listed as the creator of the fundraiser, and Hines was the beneficiary. The actor's manager of nine years told the Hollywood Reporter on Jan. 6 that Rourke knew about the origins of the effort, despite saying she didn't: She and her assistant had passed the idea on to her assistant before it was launched, she said, and both teams were on board with it.
“No one is trying to scam Mickey. I want him working. I don't want him doing a GoFundMe,” Hines told THR. “The cool thing about this is that he's gotten four movie offers since yesterday. People are emailing him movie offers now, which is great because no one's been calling him for a long time.”
But Rourke was still worried about it Thursday on Instagram, where he said in a pair of posts that there was still more than $90,000 left to return to his followers and promised that his lawyer was “doing everything in his power” to make sure people get their “hard-earned money back.”
He also thanked some “great” friends who he said reached out after seeing the “scam” that he needed money, including UFC boss Dana White and fighter Bill “Superfoot” Wallace.
Rourke said in his Jan. 6 video, filmed while staying in a hotel: “I'm grateful for what I have. I have a roof over my head, I have food to eat… It's all good. Just get your money back, please. I don't need anyone's money, and I wouldn't do it this way. I have too much pride. This isn't my style.”
