Fundraising to save Mickey Rourke's home has temporarily stalled after the Oscar-nominated actor turned down more than $100,000 from fans and supporters earlier this week.
On Thursday, the GoFundMe page said “donations paused,” and Kimberly Hines, Rourke's manager of nine years, addressed the situation in an update.
“Thank you so much for your generosity and for supporting Mickey throughout this time,” she wrote. “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.”
Rourke, 73, said in a video posted Monday that he did not know who organized the campaign. Efforts allegedly aimed at keeping Rourke in his home when he he was facing eviction due to nearly $60,000 in unpaid rentwas founded on Sunday by members of his management team and had raised more than its $100,000 goal by Tuesday morning. Dozens of the more than 2,700 people who donated also posted messages about how much the actor's films have meant to them over the years.
“I wouldn't know what a GoFund was in a million years,” said Rourke, who starred in films like “Barfly” and “Angel Heart” in the 1980s and was nominated for an Oscar for his work in the 2008 film The Wrestler. “My life is very simple and I don’t turn to such outside sources.”
Later in the video, he said he would “never ask strangers or fans for a dime. That's not my style. Ask anyone who knows me. It's humiliating and awkward as hell.”
Rourke said he was in a “really bad situation” with the Beverly Grove home he had been renting for years. The new owners bought the place, didn't do any renovations, he said, and raised the rent from $5,200 to $7,000 a month. He claimed that the floors were rotten, there was no running water in several places, and the room was infested with rodents.
Rourke was served with an eviction notice in December, with landlords also hoping to recover $59,100 in unpaid 2025 rent. Ricardo Villalobos, the lawyer representing owner Eric Goldie in the eviction case, did not respond to The Times' request for comment on Rourke's allegations. Eviction documents reviewed by The Timeswas filed on December 29.
Hines did not respond to The Times' request for comment but spoke with Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday, telling those involved in the deal that it was not true that Rourke was unaware of the reasons for the fundraising. She confirmed some of his words about the condition of the house and added a few details of her own. In her GoFundMe update Thursday, she included a link where donors wanting to give back could apply. The fundraiser lists Hines as a beneficiary.
She told the mall that she and her assistant told Rourke's assistant about the fundraising idea and everyone thought it might be useful. Hines and her assistant organized movers and a lift to help Rourke, dragged the “Iron Man 2” villain and his three dogs to a nearby hotel and secured him the apartment he would soon move into in Koreatown, she said, before his landlords had to change the locks that day on what she called an “uninhabited” home.
“Nobody's trying to scam Mickey. I want him to work. I don't want him to do GoFundMe,” said Hines, who funded Rourke's “emergency” money. “The good thing is that he has received four movie offers since yesterday. People are now emailing him movie offers, which is great because no one has called him for a long time.”
The actor “doesn't know the word moderation,” she told THR. “So he either has a lot or he has nothing. He lives from check to check.” Hines said it was time to talk to her client about how he was living within his means, on Social Security and income from any jobs that might come his way.
In his video, Rourke took some responsibility for his situation.
“Look, I did a terrible job of managing my career. I wasn't very diplomatic. I had to go through over 20 years of therapy to overcome the damage that was done to me years ago, and I worked really hard to get through it,” the “9.5 Weeks” star said. “I'm not that person anymore.”
Telling his supporters they should get their money back, he added: “Like all storms, this will pass and I'll go to work and everything will go back to normal.” Until then, don't worry about him, he said, because he's grateful for what he has.
“I have a roof over my head, I have food… I don't need anyone's money and I wouldn't do that. I have too much pride. That's not my style.”
The total amount pledged for the fundraiser dropped from more than $100,000 earlier this week to just under $97,000 on Thursday after the event was suspended. On Wednesday evening, Rourke's Instagram page posted an article from World Boxing News outlining the reason for the pause.
