The actor and retired boxer has revealed he almost shot himself after being plunged into depression but was stopped from pulling the trigger by his pet pooch Beau Jack after he gazed into his eyes and whimpered.
Speaking to the New York Post‘s Page Six column, he 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.”
He added: ”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 and…he said [with this eyes], who’s going to look after me?’ And it made me put the gun down.”
Beau Jack sadly passed away in 2002 after he suffered a heart attack but Mickey was determined not to let him go without a fight and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for 45 minutes, but his efforts proved unsuccessful.
The Sin City: A Dame to Kill For star even took the body of little Beau Jack, a chihuahua, to a church to be blessed after his death, according to the New York Times.
Meanwhile, Mickey, who has six dogs, has made no secret of the fact his furry pets have pulled him out of a dark place.
The star even thanked his collection of dogs in his acceptance speech in 2009 after he won a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his lead role in The Wrestler.
He said at the time: ”Sometimes when a man’s alone, that’s all you got is your dog. And they’ve meant the world to me.”