Mickey Rourke: 'My Dog Saved Me From Suicide’
Mickey Rourke has said that he ‘picked up a gun’ during his dark period, and considered taking his own life.
But it was his beloved dog Beau Jack who pulled him back from the brink.
Speaking to Page Six, the 63-year-old actor, who has six dogs, said: “I was going through a really rough time. I was hurting myself and I was sitting in the closet one day.
“I couldn’t take it anymore and picked up a gun.
“I was deciding what part of my head to put it on and my dog, Beau Jack, he [cried] and I looked over and he looked up at me like this and… he said [with this eyes], who’s going to look after me?’
“And it made me put the gun down. I was ready to go.”
Beau Jack, a chihuahua, sadly died in 2002 after a heart attack, despite an attempt by Rourke to resuscitate him.
He’s spoken about the dark times before, telling Barbara Walters on ABC: “I sort of self-destructed and everything came out about 14 years ago or so… the wife had left, the career was over, the money was not an ounce. The dogs were there when no one else was there.”
However, during that interview, he said that he’d not considered suicide.
“Yeah I didn’t want to be here, but I didn’t want to kill myself. I just wanted to push a button and disappear… I think I hadn’t left the house for four or five months, and I was sitting in the closet–sleeping in the closet for some reason.”
He went as fas as to credit his dogs during his acceptance speech for his Golden Globe in 2009, which he won for his role in 'The Wrestler’.
“Sometimes when a man’s alone, that’s all you got is your dog. And they’ve meant the world to me,” he said.
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Image credits: AP/Yahoo
