The Most Shocking Revelations from The Hollywood Reporter's Exposé on Mickey Rooney's Final Years

Mickey Rooney testifies before the Senate Aging Committee about elder abuse in 2011 (AP Photo)

For generations, Mickey Rooney was one of the biggest and brightest stars in Hollywood. He won a juvenile Oscar in 1939 and was the world’s top box-office draw from that year until 1941, all before his 22nd birthday. Rooney worked for nearly all of his 93 years and yet died last year with just $18,000 to his name. In a shocking story for The Hollywood Reporter, reporters Gary Baum and Scott Feinberg detail the abuse, betrayal, and isolation one of Hollywood’s biggest stars endured in his final years.

The piece alleges that Rooney suffered for years at the hands of his eighth wife, Jan, and one of her sons Chris. It begins with an interview in 2010 with all three where Jan kicked the then-90-year-old actor for “rambling his answers.”

Just one year later, Rooney would testify before the Senate claiming he’d been stripped “of the ability to make even the most basic decisions” about his life, calling his daily existence “unbearable” and “helpless.” Though, at the time, Rooney did not name names, THR corroborates, through legal documents and testimony of people involved in his later life, that Jan and Chris were his primary tormenters.

Legal documents confirm that, toward the end of his life, Rooney was not even allowed to carry an ID or buy food.

Various witnesses throughout claim to have seen Jan being physically abusive toward her husband of 36 years. A caretaker, Hector Garcia, says he entered a bedroom at the Rooneys’ house after hearing shouting to find Mickey on the floor with Jan standing over him. “Get used to it,” Garcia claims Jan said to him at the time. “I hit him because that’s the only way he learns — by hitting him like a kid.“

Jan and Mickey Rooney at the 50th Annual Academy Awards in 1978 (AP Photo)

Speaking to THR, Jan Rooney, 75, insists she "never physically abused Mickey, but we had some minor pushing scuffles, tempers flared up when we were angry. Sometimes it was his fault, sometimes mine. We always made up.”

As for Rooney’s stepson Chris Aber, Rooney’s conservator Michael Augustine — who was hired after Rooney confided in Disney executive Edward Nowak about the abuse he faced at home — alleges that Aber stole $8.5 million from Rooney. In 2013, Aber agreed to a $2.8 million civil settlement; he has not paid a cent.

Jan Rooney’s younger son Mark Aber and his wife, Charlene, who served as Rooney’s at-home caregivers in his final years, also allege that Jan was controlling Rooney through a powerful combination of prescription medications. “[Jan] said, ‘I have to keep him high to be onstage, and I have to keep him quiet and subdued when he’s at home,'” Charlene says. Jan, however, denies the claim.

Court documents confirm that Chris, who was in charge of Rooney’s career in the late ‘90s and the early part of this century, owned four homes, two Mercedes, and a Porsche. At the same time, Rooney’s home was refinanced “repeatedly” to withdraw equity.

Mickey Rooney in 1958’s Andy Hardy Comes Home, the 16th and final Andy Hardy film (Everett Collection)

Mark and Charlene Aber moved in with Mickey and Jan in 2006 after, as Charlene recounts, “Mickey grabbed me by the arms and said: 'Look at me! You have to promise me that you and Mark are going to help me. I can’t take it anymore!'” Mark is currently estranged from his mother and brother.

Shortly after Augustine was hired as Rooney’s conservator, he negotiated a separation agreement between Mickey and Jan and, in June 2012, had Mickey Rooney placed in the care of Mark and Charlene at a location which would not be disclosed to Jan and Chris.

Mark Aber, Jan and Mickey Rooney, and Chris Aber in the 1980s (Getty Images)

Rooney passed away from natural causes on April 6, 2014, but within hours Jan and Chris were giving interviews. Though he was nearly bankrupt at the time of his death, publicist and manager Roger Neal arranged for Rooney to have a plot at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, alongside fellow titans of stage and screen.

However, the turmoil has not ended. Throughout the piece, various players accuse others of withholding funds or pieces of Rooney’s estate that they are owed. L.A.’s Superior Court has yet to make a decision over the rights to Rooney’s estate, while Jan continues to receive his SAG pension. Chris Aber has not yet paid his $2.8 million civil settlement and Mark and Charlene say they’re owed $38,000 in unpaid caregiver fees.

You can read the full story on The Hollywood Reporter; it is heartbreaking.