Celebrity Big Brother’s Mickey Rourke forced to borrow $500,000 after admitting ‘career is in the toilet’
Mickey Rourke has revealed he was forced to borrow $500,000 (£390,000) from the bank, after revealing it was between Celebrity Big Brother and a ‘bad independent movie’ when choosing to join the ITV series.
The 72-year-old actor has already stirred controversy after being branded creepy for his behaviour towards host AJ Odudu during the launch episode prompting calls for him to be booted out.
He’s since been given a warning from Big Brother after a homophobic comment, with further calls for him to be axed.
And the choice to join the popular British reality series has raised eyebrows for many wondering why the Hollywood star would make such a shock career move.
In a recent interview, Rourke revealed his ‘career is in the toilet’ and he ultimately decided to give Big Brother a try despite knowing ‘nothing about this show’.
He’s now recalled needing to borrow money from the bank, telling Love Island star Chris Hughes during a chat on Tuesday: ‘Two years of Covid to then a seven-month actors’ strike, I had to borrow half a million dollars from the bank to get by and pay bills.
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‘Everybody in those picket lines is an out of work actor, there would be the flavour of the month actor show up to just say “how great am I, I’m in the picket line with all the poor people that will never get a job, aren’t I wonderful”.’
In the same conversation, Rourke remarked that he’s only trying to ‘last four days’ in the Celebrity Big Brother house.
This comes after an interview in which Rourke said: ‘My shrink said, “When you were young, at 14, you put your finger on the hard button. The problem is you never took it off.” And he’s right.
‘I’ve made mistakes, many. I have nobody to blame for my ship sinking except myself. My career is in the toilet and I’m not getting A-list movies.
What did Mickey Rourke say to JoJo Siwa on Celebrity Big Brother?
On Celebrity Big Brother 2025, Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke sparked uproar with homophobic comments that he made towards internet sensation JoJo Siwa.
Speaking in the House, Rourke, 72, asked Siwa, 21: ‘So do you like girls or boys?’
‘Me? Girls,’ Siwa answered, to which Rourke responded: ‘I know, I could tell.’
After the dancer shared that her partner is non-binary, the housemates who were in the garden started to talk about the eviction due to take place that week on Friday night.
‘If I stay longer than four days, you won’t be gay anymore,’ Rourke remarked, as Siwa said back to him: ‘I can guarantee I will still be gay and I will still be in a very happy relationship.’
‘I’ll tie you up,’ The Wrestler actor replied.
‘I can promise you that won’t happen,’ Siwa stated. ‘I dare you to try, you’ll be the one tied up.’
Rourke then spoke to some other housemates, asking about the process of voting out other contestants on Celebrity Big Brother.
‘I’m going to vote the lesbian out real quick,’ he said, as Siwa – who was lying on a sun lounger – turned her head towards him and declared: ‘That’s homophobic.’
‘Eh?’ Rourke asked, as Siwa continued: ‘That’s homophobic if that was your reasoning.’
After the actor repeated that he was going to ‘vote the lesbian out’, he then exclaimed: ‘I need a fag’ in reference to wanting a cigarette.
However, he then gestured towards Siwa and quipped: ‘Not talking to you,’ seemingly referencing the f word that’s used as an anti-gay slur.
Love Island star Chris Hughes, who was sitting next to Rourke, told him: ‘You can’t say that Mickey,’ while Siwa kept her composure and said: ‘One breath at a time troops, one breath at a time.’
After Hughes repeated his warning to Rourke, the actor insisted that he had been talking about a cigarette before walking off on his own.
The reality TV star went over to check on Siwa, consoling her as she cried in his arms over the upset. At the same time, Rourke was called to the Diary Room, where he received a formal warning for his remarks.
Later on inside the lounge, Rourke went over to Siwa as he told her: ‘I want to apologise,’ telling her that he has a ‘bad habit of having a short fuse’.
‘I don’t mean nothing by it. Ok sorry,’ he said as he shook her hand, while she told him that she appreciated his apology.
Rourke’s homophobic comments towards Siwa happened a day after he was criticised for touching presenter AJ Odudu ‘inappropriately’ on stage.
‘I’d like to be back where I can work on movies that have integrity,’ he told The Sun.
After rising to prominence as an 80s action heartthrob in movies like Angel Heart and Rumble Fish, Rourke took a break to pursue a short-lived professional boxing career.
He attempted to stage a comeback with his movie Sin City in 2005 followed by his Oscar-nominated role in The Wrestler in 2008.
However, he ran out of steam once more by appearing as the main villain in Iron Man 2, which he went on to criticise after Marvel cut several of his scenes.
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Since then he has starred in a series of smaller movies like Murder Motel and Hollywood Heist, had a stint on Masked Singer which he dramatically quit, and appeared in a so-far undistributed Roman Polanski film.
According to Rourke, he has dream directors that he hopes can ‘trust him for who he is today’ rather than ‘the reputation’ that proceeds him after a rocky Hollywood career.
In recent years he has sparked furore for calling Amber Heard a ‘gold-digger’ and Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise ‘irrelevant’ to name a few scandals.
He warned: ‘But once it goes past a certain point, I’ve got a short fuse — there’s no turning back. It’s on.’
And explained the motivation behind his decision to join Big Brother.
Metro's deputy TV editor Sabrina Barr on why ITV should remove Mickey Rourke
I don’t care if axing him from the show would be a detrimental financial decision. After the way we all saw him act when he met Odudu – brazenly touching her despite her protestations for him to stop looking at her – ITV should have cut their losses and got him out.
While there are some fans who are justifiably furious about his behaviour, others have horrifyingly found him comical, hailing the ‘chaos’ and ‘entertainment’ that they believe Rourke is going to bring to Celebrity Big Brother.
‘This show is the gift that keeps on giving,’ one fan called @HelloItsLevi wrote on X.
‘I needed a scandal this season and I believe Mickey Rourke will provide it,’ another named @adammdaveyy added.
No – we don’t need Rourke in the Big Brother House for the sake of creating a scandal.
I don’t need to watch a man who sends shivers down my spine in the worst possible way to be entertained. The bar is extraordinarily low if that’s what viewers are lapping up.
‘It was between this or a really bad independent movie, and I’ve had it up to here with really bad independent movies.
‘So I said, you know what? Let’s go do that thing in England. I want to go to London anyway.
‘I know nothing about this show. I’m not worried — I don’t care about any bad habits I might have for the world to see.’
Now he is taking inspiration from the way Mick Jagger ‘reinvented’ himself, claiming he is ‘not the guy that went out eight nights a week picking up supermodels.’
His latest comeback attempt has kicked off to a heavily criticised start following the backlash to him ‘ogling’ Odudu.
One audience member on the Late & Live episode asked the presenter (who is co-hosting with WIll Best) if she was okay to which she replied: ‘I’m absolutely tip-top’ as ITV opts to keep Rourke in the house.
He is joined by an impressive cohort of housemates including JoJo Siwa, Angelica Bell, Trisha Goddard and Danny Beard.
Elsewhere in the show so far there have been hints of a ‘showmance’ brewing between Towie star Ella Rae Wise, 24, and Love Islander Chris Hughes, 32.
Ahead of entering the house the newly-single Ella teased that there is ‘nothing wrong’ with an innocent flirt’ so time will tell if this potential connection goes anywhere.
Celebrity Big Brother continues tonight at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
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