Mickey Rourke can't give himself a break. He finally mounts a comeback with The Wrestler—they're talking Oscar...nomination—but he has to go and ruin it by starting shit with his main competition, Milk's Sean Penn.

That's what The Daily Beast is growling about, anyway. They claim that Rourke, who will definitely be nominated for the sad meaty indie but will not win, has been bad-mouthing Penn, who will get a nomination for his gay rabble-rouser and will win. Rourke allegedly sent a text message to a pal saying:

Look seans an old friend of mine and i didnt buy his performance at all—thought he did an average pretend acting like he was gay besides hes one of the most homophobic people i kno

Sean Penn, a homophobe??? But he seemed so violent.

If the text message, and his supposed backstage-somewhere statement that he's "not even sure [Sean will] get a nomination,” are real (and that's a medium-sized "if"), it's kinda sad. You maybe like to think that an actor—or anyone, really—is down on their luck because of nasty little tricks of fate, things out of their martyred control. But, no. Sometimes they're just impossible, incorrigible scourges. And toweringly sad and moving performance that his work in The Wrestler may be, we still kinda don't like Mickey. He just seems like a jackass a lot of the time.