Bella Thorne on Mickey Rourke: “One of the all-time worst experiences of my life working as an actress.”

Mickey Rourke returned to the public eye this month with his brief, controversial appearance on Celebrity Big Brother.

The 72-year-old actor and former boxer, a Hollywood heart throb in the 1980s, known for his smoldering performances in Rumble Fish and Barfly, cut a very different look in the CBB house. Years spent in the ring has taken its toll on Rourke, who required several operations to repair the damage to his bruised and battered face.

No stranger to confrontation, the actor had a run-in with gay housemate JoJo Siwa during the second day in the house, he joked with her: “If I stay longer than four days you won’t be gay anymore.”

Later, in a chat with his fellow housemates, he piped up: “I’m gonna vote the lesbian out real quick”.

That earned him a formal warning from ITV producers and appeared to sentenced him to an early exit from the show. Rourke became the second housemate to leave the Celebrity Big Brother house after being disqualified for “unacceptable behavior”.

Mickey getting kicked out drew a reaction from viewers - as well as one of his former co-stars. Bella Thorne starred alongside him in Chad Faust’s 2020 thriller Girl, an experience she has spoken candidly about in the past.

Bella Thorne’s nightmare working with Mickey Rourke

There was clearly no love lost between the two, and Thorne took to social media to recall how she was physically abused by Rourke on set.

“This f***ing dude. GROSS,” Thorne posted on X. “I had to work with this man – in a scene where I’m on my knees with my hands zip-tied around my back. He’s supposed to take a metal grinder to my knee cap and instead he used it on my genitals thru my jeans. Hitting them over and over again. I had bruises on my pelvic bone.”

In two follow-up posts, she revealed that Rourke came across as stubborn and uncooperative: “Also side note: like f**k Mickey - how he acted doesn’t negate the incredible hard work that everybody else put into that movie. Everyone worked HARD literal blood, sweat, and tears to make that vision and I’m really proud of everyone and the work that was done on that movie.

“So many gross stories of things he made me go thru on that movie, including in his last scene to speed up and rev his engine so he could cover me completely in dirt. Idk I guess he thought it was funny to humiliate me in front of the entire crew. Having to go in his trailer absolutely alone because he refused to speak to the director or producers - so I had to convince him to show up and complete his job, as he shouted crazy demands that he wanted from the producers. In fact I had to beg. Alone. In his trailer. Since the movie could not be finished without him. Everyone’s work would’ve just been lost and completely for nothing. I didn’t wanna do it. I was uncomfortable, but I did what I was asked to do and what was best for the movie. Mickey should’ve never put anybody in that movie in any of those positions that he did”.

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