Bam Margera Pays Tribute to Children of Bodom’s Alexi Laiho, Two and a Half Months Late
Former Jackass star and pro skater Bam Margera JUST found out about Alexi Laiho’s death. The Children of Bodom frontman passed in late December, and word broke to the world on January 4, over two and a half months ago.
We can only guess why it took this long for Margera to learn about the death of someone he considered a “very good friend” — isolation forced on him by ongoing rehab efforts, perhaps? although recent social media activity indicates that is not the case — but Margera was a champion of Bodom in the band’s early days, and he’s now shared his feelings on the loss of Laiho, spelling his name incorrectly, in a post to social media.
Writing on Instagram, Margera shared:
“Forgive me I have been living in a cave. One of my very good friends and known as the best guitar player in metal ALEXI LEAHO of children of bodom from Finland has passed away and because Elliot Sloan and I started talking about music and how a band IN FLAMES rehearsed In his studio. From there we went down the rabbit hole, AT THE GATES, best metal album ever AMORPHIS “tales from the thousand lakes” HANK VON HELVETE (New Album) amazing!
“Then it led to my favorite, Chris coles favorite”CHILDREN OF BODOM and that’s where Elliot told me the tragic news. Although I am the late to know I spent the evening in tears. JUSSI69 has a forever reserved table at “the RIFF” bar in south HELSINKI Finland to never forget the best guitar battle with Alexi and a young gun ARCHIE CRUZ of “Santa Cruz” Finland’s newest hit Rock band!
“Well RIP to alexi, I never forget the BEST ❤️♾???????????????? Espoo! Koksi esourr Karhu! Ville valo Sekkala ANDY wammy bar McCoy fissu????”
Margera made headlines in 2019 following a bizarre series of events that saw him in and out of rehab for alcohol abuse. Margera was arrested at a Hollywood hotel bar where he’d been drunkenly spinning a tale to two men about how he’d been paid $100,000 by a woman to catch one of them cheating. After the arrest, which saw him sitting on the floor of the lobby and refusing to willingly leave with police, he agreed to go to rehab — despite having just left rehab prior to hitting the hotel bar — at the urging TV psychologist Dr. Phil, on whose show Bam had appeared just prior to the entire sequence of events (which also saw him get “Dr. Phil” tattooed on his neck at at Von D’s shop). That episode eventually aired on TV in September of 2019.
Laiho was just 41 years old when he died of “alcohol-induced degeneration of the liver and pancreas connective tissue.”
Bodom After Midnight, Alexi’s newly formed band after ceding control of Children of Bodom due to legal reasons in 2019, will release a 14-minute, 3-song EP, Paint the Sky with Blood, later this year.
Alexi’s family and his first wife, Kimberly Goss, are currently embroiled in a bitter disagreement that is holding up the burial of his remains.
[via Metal Injection]
