A return to the scene of the grime

Jesse James had it all. The Hollywood A-list wife. A top-ranked cable-TV show. He’d built his Long Beach shop, West Coast Choppers, into an empire, wrenching custom $80,000-plus motorcycles for a celebrity clientele -- an endeavor he spun off into a mass-market clothing line for Wal-Mart, a glossy gearhead magazine and an eco-friendly burger joint he hoped to franchise.

That was early 2010. Two months later, he’d thrown it all away with a string of extramarital affairs that made James a household name for all the wrong reasons. Monday night, James returns to his roots on the cable-TV channel that launched his career more than a decade ago, with a guest appearance on a two-night special of the Discovery Channel hit “American Chopper.”

But after all the tabloid gossip involving his sexual exploits, the infamous Nazi photo, the demise of his marriage to now ex-wife Sandra Bullock, then his on-and-permanently-off engagement to Kat Von D (none of which he willl address these days) , is the public ready to re-embrace the fallen star who had become the most hated man in America? The Discovery Channel thinks so, and so does James, who chalks up his indiscretions to being “miserable,” he said in a Times interview. “I think people are tired of hearing about my personal life and ready to see me work again.... People have almost forgot that I am one of the best in the world at what I do.”

Before his well-publicized affairs, James was the most famous name in modern motorcycling. A distant relative of the 19th century outlaw, he was a working-class aesthete whose welding skills and attention to detail elevated his handmade bikes to the height of artistry. A Long Beach native, he transformed his hard-knock upbringing into a career as the star of Discovery’s rip-it-apart-and-rebuild-it TV show “Monster Garage,” where he met the celebrity that would later become his wife.

“I became a big shot and married some Hollywood actress and didn’t talk to anybody anymore, so I feel bad,” James explains at the beginning of Monday night’s show, pitting him against Paul Teutul Jr. and Paul Teutul Sr. in a build-off. The stainless-steel “middle-finger” bike debuting is the first motorcycle he’s personally built in five years. “I feel obligated to reconnect with all these people and show ‘em that I’m still the same fabricator motorcycle guy. I’m not what I became.”

In other words, he isn’t a sexually reckless, Hollywood hanger-on. These days, he said, he’s simply a hard-working dad.

“I think I had to go through all the stuff I went through to find out what was really important. I’m a single dad to three kids, and that’s 99% of my life. The other 1% is my work and creativity and being devoted to that,” said the 42-year-old James, who says he isn’t dating because “it’s an energy sucker.” He now lives on a ranch outside of Austin, Texas, having donated part of the West Coast Choppers complex to the Long Beach Rescue Mission.

James’ appearance wasn’t his idea but the Discovery Channel’s.

“Across the board, what works is authenticity,” said “American Chopper” executive producer Christo Doyle. “Jesse’s the real deal. He’s a legitimate bike-builder, and now he’s getting back to the craft that made him who he is. People respect that aside from the other stuff that he’s been sucked into,” said Doyle, who is also working with James on a pilot for a new show.

“People want nothing more than to tear down someone really successful,” said Nick Nanton, a celebrity branding specialist in Florida. “But the only thing they love to do more than that is to build them back up.”

James’ as-yet-unnamed series would include elements of “Monster Garage,” which remains Discovery’s highest-rated series debut ever. On the air four years, the program featured Jesse and his team fabricating new machines out of raw metal to a soundtrack that was just as hard and heavy.

James parlayed that into the 2009 Spike series “Jesse James Is a Dead Man,” the highest-rated series debut ever for Spike TV when it aired in July 2009. But the show, which featured James setting himself on fire and tearing down a drag strip on a nitro bike, among other things, ran into insurance troubles, James said. “It was getting really expensive and lawyers were stepping in saying you can’t do this or that.”

A polarizing figure, James says exactly what’s on his mind, and he does it with humor and profanity. If he doesn’t like someone, he’ll say so, as he’s done with the Teutuls.

“American Chopper” may have 1.8 million weekly viewers, but that hasn’t stopped James from dismissing the Teutuls as “cake decorators.”

Neither Teutul “would even know how to turn any of my machines on, let alone use them,” James says in Monday’s show, among other, not-for-print put-downs.

To fans, such statements are classic Jesse James, but to casual viewers it may seem ungracious since James is, in effect, a guest on what was once a rival show in an attempt to revitalize his image and set the stage for a comeback.

“I would not have invited [James],” the elder Teutul said in a Times interview, “because he’s a jerk. The way he’s coming off, it’s like he’s doing us a favor. If he gets a show, it’s great. I hope he does.... He hasn’t been doing anything, and now all of the sudden he’s back. My question is, Why’s he back?”

James vowed that his new show will be a “bigger, better ‘Monster Garage.’ Something kind of gritty with a ticking clock and me building a little bit nicer stuff,” James said. “The [“American Chopper”] build-off will showcase me.”

The bike he’s showing and allowing viewers to vote on in a live program Tuesday was built in his home garage in Texas. Made from stainless steel, it’s a return to form that demonstrates James’ new back-to-basics ethos.

“People act like I’m out at strip clubs every night and having sex orgies,” said James, “and you know what? I’m at home with my kids every day and working. It would be great to have the perfect woman and have a real relationship. I tried to force all that to happen, and it didn’t, and now I have to focus on what’s really important. I don’t have that great a social life. I ride my bike to a friend’s club. I sit in the back and drink mineral water and watch a jazz trio play for a couple hours and then I ride home.

“That’s how I get down, man.”

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susan.carpenter@latimes.com

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‘American Chopper’

Where: Discovery

When: 9 p.m. Monday

Rating: TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for young children with an advisory for coarse language)