Oscar season has claimed its first victim. Mickey Rourke's treasured, constant companion—his Chihuahua, Loki—is dead at age 18.

TMZ broke the news last night, just as these snippets were released from Rourke's upcoming interview with Barbara Walters:

"I sort of self-destructed and everything came out about fourteen years ago or so ... the wife had left, the career was over, the money was not an ounce," Rourke, 56, reveals during the Oscar night edition of The Barbara Walters Special, of which PEOPLE has an exclusive preview. "The dogs were there when no one else was there." [...]

"I think I hadn't left the house for four or five months, and I was sitting in the closet, sleeping in the closet for some reason, and I was in a bad place, and I just remember I was thinking, 'Oh, man, if I do this,' " he tells Walters. "And then I looked at my dog, Lowjack, and he made a sound, like a little almost human sound. I don't have kids, the dogs became everything to me. The dog was looking at me going, 'Who's going to take care of me?' "

Rourke didn't let a little thing like Loki's death keep him from hitting up some Manhattan hotspots last night, but we all know that the man is hurting inside. The competition to become his Oscar date has just been thinned even further. Bai Ling, it didn't have to be like this.