JoJo Siwa has said she has ‘sympathy’ for Mickey Rourke after the homophobic comments he made to her in the Celebrity Big Brother house.
Hollywood star Mickey, 72, was eventually kicked out of the ITV reality programme after a series of incidents.
He caused outrage during his time on Celebrity Big Brother, sparking more than 1,000 Ofcom complaints and risking his rumoured £500,000 fee, from the moment he stepped in front of cameras when he displayed ‘creepy’ behaviour towards host AJ Odudu during the launch.
Just hours later, he used a homophobic slur against popstar JoJo, saying: saying: ‘If I stay longer than four days, you won’t be gay anymore.’
He was given a formal warning by Big Brother, while JoJo gave him a killer nomination, but he was later axed from the house after his behaviour and language to Love Island star Chris Hughes during a disagreement in a task was considered to be threatening and physical, though no physical altercation took place.
Several stars have spoken out about Mickey’s behaviour, and JoJo has now spoken about the drama.
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 used a slang word beginning with f to say that he wanted 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 think I learned very, very quickly that Mickey is not a good man, right?’ she said in an interview with Us Weekly.
‘But two truths can exist. I can say Mickey’s not a good man. And I can say I have sympathy for Mickey.
‘And I think one thing that Mickey has not gotten in a very long time in his life is sympathy or a conversation about something rather than a celebrity story, a movie he was in.’
When asked how she stayed so calm after Mickey’s vile comments, the Dance Moms star continued: ‘Something else that I am very prominent on in my life is that if somebody thinks differently than you, whether that be on different social or political things in the world, would you get them a bandaid? And that’s how I decide if I can be good to somebody or not.
‘Mickey Rourke and I have different brains. We handle things differently. We’re different people.
‘I would, no matter what, if he cut his finger, get him a bandaid. And I think Mickey would give me a bandaid. I don’t think he would know where they are, but the intention is there!
‘And that’s a message that I really stand strongly behind, is if somebody has different views than you, that doesn’t mean you cannot coexist.’
While JoJo was still in the house, her mother Jessalyn spoke out against Mickey, saying she’s ‘really sad’ by it all.
‘I’m not surprised that he didn’t go home. I knew he wouldn’t,’ she began in a video.
‘I’m really sad, though, that I sent my kid to a foreign country to do a TV show and she got treated like that— right away, right out of the gate.
‘She handled it great, everyone has told me that she handled herself so well but that doesn’t make it okay. Doesn’t make it right. I am just lucky she can handle herself. I’m just lucky she is okay.
‘I watch her on the live feed and in the rest of the scenes from the show and I think she looks great.’
‘I think she looks like she’s doing what she always does,’ the Dance Moms star went on.
She continued: ‘I mean, come on. It’s kind of become a culture, it’s become a game.
‘It’s a trend: “Let’s not like her. Let’s hate her. Let’s make fun of her. Let’s tell her she’s a bad dancer. Tell her she can’t sing. Tell her you’ll make her not a lesbian”.’
‘What’s next? Why don’t you just take it for face value?
‘It’s funny I see a lot of comments that are like, “I like JoJo when she’s like this on the show”.’
‘What do you mean? That’s how she always is. You just don’t see it. You choose not to. You see what you want to see.’
Celebrity Big Brother is available to watch on ITVX.
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