Mickey Rourke has exited Celebrity Big Brother UK days receiving a formal warning for his treatment of fellow housemate, JoJJo Siwa.
“Mickey Rourke has agreed to leave the Celebrity Big Brother House this evening following a discussion with Big Brother regarding further use of inappropriate language and instances of unacceptable behaviour,” a Celebrity Big Brother spokesperson told Us Weekly on Saturday, April 12.
Rourke, 72, left the all-star reality show following a disagreement with Love Island UK star Chris Hughes over a task. The two housemates became heated over their disagreement but the confrontation reportedly did not turn physical.
Earlier in the week, the one-time Oscar nominee received a formal warning in Big Brother’s “diary room” for violating “rules regarding unacceptable language.” He offended Siwa after telling her if he stayed in the house “longer than four days, you won’t be gay anymore.”
Mickey Rourke and Jojo Siwa on ‘Celebrity Big Brother UK’ ITV
“I can guarantee I’ll still be gay,” Siwa, 21, shot back, “And I’ll still be in a very happy relationship.”
Siwa then overheard Rourke telling Hughes that he was “going to vote the lesbian out real quick,” prompting the Dance Moms alum to respond, “That’s homophobic, if that was your reasoning.”
In the “diary room,” Rourke was told that his “language was offensive and unacceptable” and was warned he could be “removed from the Big Brother house” if there was another incident.
Rourke eventually apologized to Siwa, telling her, “I’ve got a habit of having a short fuse. And I don’t mean nothing by it. I do mean it [sorry]. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t say it to you.”
Siwa’s partner, Kath Ebbs, later condemned Rourke’s conduct as “beyond disgusting” while the reality star’s mother, Jessalyn Siwa, said she was disheartened by the ordeal.
“I’m really sad, though, that I sent my kid — and she is my kid [because] I am her mom and she is my kid — to a foreign country to do a TV show and she got treated like that right away, right out of the gate,” Jessalyn, 50, said on Friday, April 11 via Instagram.
In response to the controversy, the Iron Man 2 star’s spokesperson Kimberly Hines told Us Weekly that Rourke “speaks from his heart and means well.”
“He is old school, direct and honest. I have worked closely with him for nine years and he is 100 percent authentically himself. There will never be another Mickey Rourke. Period,” Hines said.
Prior to receiving a formal warning on the UK show, Rourke faced a backlash from viewers for grabbing cohost AJ Odudu during his entry into the Celebrity Big Brother house.
Rourke first found Hollywood fame with hits like Body Heat and Diner in the 1980s, before briefly quitting acting to pursue his passion for boxing in the early 1990s. He later returned to acting and received a Best Actor Oscar nomination in 2009 for his gripping performance as a down-on-his-luck grappler in The Wrestler.
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