ANYONE who had failed to remember Mickey Rourke’s reputation as the original Hollywood rebel was dealt a swift reminder as he prepared to enter the Big Brother house.

Stumbling up ITV’s shiny staircase with the help of security, the veteran movie actor latched on to gorgeous AJ Odudu, leering at her bum and refusing to leave her side.

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But Mickey was unfazed by his shocking entrance during Monday night’s live launch — as the fading star knows he has hit rock bottom.

In his only interview before Celebrity Big Brother, the Sin City actor said: “My shrink said, ‘When you were young, at 14, you put your finger on the hard button. The problem is you never took it off.’ And he’s right.

“I’ve made mistakes, many. I have nobody to blame for my ship sinking except myself.

“My career is in the toilet and I’m not getting A-list movies.

“I’d like to be back where I can work on movies that have integrity.

“There’s directors I want to work with and have them not be afraid of me and trust me for who I am today, not for the reputation I have.

“But once it goes past a certain point, I’ve got a short fuse — there’s no turning back. It’s on.”

‘Picking up supermodels’

While shooting his latest movie, the bad boy actor smashed up a film set — and it is hard to see how joining a reality TV show known for pushing all the wrong buttons could help overhaul Mickey’s image.

He added: “They said, ‘Do you want to do this?’

“It was between this or a really bad independent movie, and I’ve had it up to here with really bad independent movies.

“So I said, you know what? Let’s go do that thing in England. I want to go to London anyway.

“I know nothing about this show. I’m not worried — I don’t care about any bad habits I might have for the world to see.”

But viewers of Celebrity Big Brother already think Mickey is going to find himself cancelled after his outrageous behaviour with AJ, who diplomatically described it online last night as an “interesting encounter”.

A member of the studio audience told The Sun AJ, who presents the show alongside Will Best, looked visibly uncomfortable in the ad break that followed the exchange.

Grabbing a champagne flute on arrival in the spy-on-the-wall house, Mickey seemed baffled as he was confronted with a conga line led by US pop star Jojo Siwa and singer Chesney Hawkes.

It wasn’t long before he fell asleep on the house’s plush sofa by midnight as Olympic decathlon great Daley Thompson and the rest of the housemates chatted away.

Mickey’s behaviour is particularly awkward because, chatting exclusively to The Sun while secluded from the other CBB stars in a hotel before the show’s launch, the actor insisted he has sharpened up his act — with a British rock legend as his inspiration.

In the house I’m just going to have to take a breath and count to ten. I know that

Mickey

Mickey said: “In the house I’m just going to have to take a breath and count to ten. I know that.

“I have a challenge ahead of me but I’m not what I used to be. I’m not the guy that went out eight nights a week picking up supermodels.

“Look at the way Mick Jagger reinvented himself. Mick moves around like a teenager because he trains 45 minutes a day and he looks after himself proper. He’s a role model for me in that sense, absolutely.

“He’s had his hell-raising days and now he’s like a teenager again.”

Now 72, Mickey is all too aware he’s not got long left on the clock. Last week he lost showbiz pal Val Kilmer.

Mickey said: “All my good friends that I used to see over here in England, they’re all gone. So I realised that this life is a short, fast cup of coffee.

“What I’m trying to do now is to make the fourth quarter. I want to have a good quality of life.

“It’s like when Val Kilmer died last week, for over ten years he was suffering. I’m glad he’s not suffering any more.

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“I think about my own mortality all the time because my psychiatrist said, ‘If you didn’t go to therapy, you wouldn’t be sitting here.’

“And I know that. I’d be dead already. I rolled with some hard men. Harder than you could ever imagine.

“Life, age catches up to you. It makes you stop and think.”

Rumoured to have been paid a hefty fee, Mickey will have plenty of time to do that while staying in the cramped TV home, where he’ll be forced to share a double bed with another housemate.

But Big Brother has laid on one luxury for the former amateur boxer — a gym, which was Mickey’s one condition for signing.

He said: “I used to go out eight days a week and raise hell and I rarely go out now.

“I’ve asked for a certain amount of gym equipment, a couple of benches and some weights and some sit up benches and stuff.

Celebrity Big Brother 2025 line-up

Celebrity Big Brother is back for a brand new series, with a whole host of stars set to live it up in the famous compound.

Here's the FULL line-up of star housemates:

Trisha Goddard - Talk show host

Mickey Rourke - Hollywood actor

Donna Preston - comedian and TV star

JoJo Siwa - influencer and singer

Chris Hughes - Love Island hunk 

Jack P. Shepherd -  Coronation Street star 

Patsy Palmer - EastEnders legend

Daley Thompson - Olympic athlete

Chesney Hawkes - 90s singer

Ella Rae Wise - Towie star

Michael Fabricant - former Tory politician 

Angellica Bell - former CBBC presenter

Danny Beard - Drag queen and Britain's Got Talent

“Fitness is really important to me as it helps my anxiety. I have panic attacks too but training really helps settle my mind.”

A day in the life of Mickey now means twice-daily exercise sessions and a diet of fish and vegetables — plus 11-day fasts where he only drinks water.

He said: “I feel amazing afterwards — re-energised. I don’t get angry. It focuses me.”

But how has the healthy new regime affected his success as a legendary lothario?

And will any woman ever compare to rumoured squeeze Kim Basinger, who he starred alongside in raunchy flick 9½ Weeks, which charted their characters’ sexually charged relationship?

Fitness is really important to me as it helps my anxiety. I have panic attacks too but training really helps settle my mind

Mickey

Mickey said with a laugh: “The question I get all the time — did you f* her? “Every place I go into, somebody will come over with a drink going, ‘Did you f*** her?’ Or ‘I got laid because of you and watching that movie.’

“It’s just nobody’s f*ing business — but I would have liked to.”

He added: “I had two dates with one girl in the last seven months and I was supposed to have a third date with her, but I realised that it wouldn’t be fair to go out to dinner with her just because I wanted to get laid.

“I really didn’t want to because she just wasn’t my type. She was OK — she was about, I don’t know, a seven and a half.”

'Fire inside me'

Mickey has been married twice — to actresses Carre Otis and Debra Feuer — but has no children.

He added: “I chose poorly each time because I chose beauty over substance.

"Beauty can camouflage evil, trust, honourable intentions. “I’m super particular, so I’ll go out to a bar and put my good s**t on and wait for Mrs World to come in. She never comes in, so f it.”

Mickey probably thought he’d found his Mrs World here in Blighty when he clocked AJ in her sparkled, feathered catsuit.

But should his bad behaviour steer viewer votes come Friday’s eviction, he might be seeing her again sooner rather than later.

It won’t matter to Mickey, who insists he’s not in it to win it. He said: “I’ve been given a lot and I’m grateful that I’ve been given what I have. I try to say this when I worry about my career being in the toilet.

“I’ve got it a lot better than a lot of other people have.

“I’ve got a lot to be thankful for, so I would be fine if somebody wins it who really wants to win it.”

But Mickey has a final word for those housemates who might cross him this month.

He warned: “Somebody may push the envelope f*ing hard and I may take a verbal hammer and hit them over the f*ing head.

“If somebody is that disrespectful, I’m not going to just take it. I still have that fire inside me.”

• Celebrity Big Brother continues tonight at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.

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