Anytime Mickey Rourke is making headlines, one can be sure that it isn’t for anything rote or predictable. The Oscar-nominated actor has apparently fallen on harder times career-wise, and reportedly faced the threat of eviction over the weekend, with his manager setting him up in an L.A. hotel last minute. That same manager, Kimberly Hines, also started a GoFundMe campaign that implored fans to help him out during a time of need, with the notion that Rourke himself had signed off on it. But not so fast…
The Iron Man 2 vet posted a video to Instagram, complete with a signature cowboy hat atop his head, where he addressed the GoFundMe efforts by claiming he had nothing to do with getting it started. Not only does he have zero interest in taking money from fans, but he’d rather defile himself with a weapon than go that route. Here’s how he put it:
Something's come up that I'm really frustrated, confused [by], and I don't understand. Somebody set up some kind of foundation or fund for me to donate money, like charity, and that's not me, okay? If I needed money, I wouldn't ask for no fucking charity. I'd rather stick a gun off my ass and pull the trigger. So whoever did this, I don't know why they did it. I don't understand it. I wouldn't know what a Go Fund foundation is in a million years.
It's pretty clear from the video, which features a dog barking throughout the background of the entire shebang, that Mickey Rourke is not so acutely aware of the ins and outs of crowdfunding websites. Although he does have a pretty firm grasp on how he feels about them, which is to say that they're not for him. At least not when he's meant to be the recipient of the donations.
Saying he "wouldn't take a fucking nickel from charity," Rourke urged his followers to get their money back from GoFundMe (amusingly suggesting that people sent checks), and claimed that he wouldn't be taking a single cent from it, despite having reached its $100,000 goal in less than two days.
He went on to take some responsibility for where things are now, saying he mismanaged things himself, without putting any onus on his current manager.
Listen, I've done a really terrible job in managing my career. I wasn't very diplomatic. I had to go to over 20 years of therapy to get over the damage that was done to me years ago, and I worked very hard to work through that. And I'm not that person anymore, but I can't be the one to say that. You got to talk to the last several people I've worked with. Talk to Robert Rodriguez, talk to Francis Coppola, to Darren Aronofsky. I'm not that wild man that I was 20 something years ago, but you pay the price for your past.
Beyond the fact that he doesn't want handouts, Rourke's core point in this video is that he claims to have no idea how the GoFundMe campaign came about, and doesn't know who started it. Which stands in total opposition to what his manager has said.
Mickey Rourke's Manager Claims He Approved The GoFundMe Plan
Despite her client claiming total ignorance, Kimberly Hines told THR that she and her assistant had the idea to reach out to the public for help, and says that Rourke gave the thumbs up, though she cops to the idea that he may not have realized what he was agreeing to. As she put it:
We were shocked that the GoFundMe took off. We’re like, 'Let’s do this little GoFundMe thing. We’ll see what happens. This will help Mickey.' And Dima, his assistant, and I were like, 'This is good. It will help Mickey.' We said, 'Mickey, there’s some people that want to help you out.' He’s like, 'OK, great.' I don’t think he understood, and now it’s taken on this media frenzy, and he flipped out.
Saying that she was essentially paying to move the actor and his things from his eviction-troubled home and to a hotel, Hines says the intentions for the GoFundMe were completely in good faith and were meant to help the actor out at a point when job offers became stagnant. She says it's unfortunate that he went off about it in such a way, but that "Nobody's trying to grift Mickey."
Even with his negative response, though, Hines pointed out the huge silver lining, saying:
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.
Rourke is an actor whose career has been saved by a big role, several times in fact, so it’s not outside the realm of reason to think that it could happen again. All it would take is for Taylor Sheridan to cast him in Landman Season 3, or for his Marvel villain Whiplash to pop up in the upcoming blockbuster Avengers: Doomsday or a similarly lucrative gig, and he’d be right back on top. (Maybe another season with Rourke's MacGruber villain, perhaps?)
Of course, his time on Celebrity Big Brother UK ended prematurely in early 2025 after he was booted from the show by producers for making insulting and homophobic comments to JoJo Siwa, which he said at the time was just his way of trying to be friendly.
Rourke's Instagram post received a lot of love from his fans and followers, with several celebrities also commenting, as noted below:
- FRANK GRILLO: brotha man you look good and sound better. you’re loved all over the world. happy new year and let this bullshit pass. ❤️🙏🥊
- LIKA O: Mickey, I love you!! One of the most amazing people I’ve met!!! Happy New year ❤️ thank you for staying real! 🙏
- NORMAN REEDUS: ❤️
Here’s hoping everything is heading in the right direction for Mickey Rourke, and that we'll see him on the 2026 movie schedule and beyond!
