Best Celebrity Arrests

Robert Downey Jr.

  • Submitted By: Julia
    • Crime: Drug Possession
    • In August 1996, at the age of 31, Robert Downey Jr. was arrested for the very first time. Drunk driving, heroin possession, carrying a .357 Magnum. His rap sheet was just getting started. Three weeks later, he'd be cited for trespassing after wandering into a neighbor's house and passing out in some poor kid's bedroom.
    • Fortunately for all of us, Downey kicked the self-destructive artist cliche with a sizable helping of therapy, 12-step and the love of a good woman. And unlike other self-indulgent, pain in the ass celebrities, we forgive Downey. Why? Cause like Iron Man, he just keeps getting better and better.

Mel Gibson

  • Submitted By: Juan
    • Crime: DUI
    • Mel Gibson is a lot of things - actor, director, and Traditionalist Catholic to name three - but no one can say that he isn't generous. Sure, he has given millions of dollars to various charitable organizations, but who cares about that? No, Gibson could see that America was starving for a taste of the most famous stars at their lowest and most ugly, and on July 26, 2006 he made a soup of tequila, anti-semitic remarks, and a pinch of sugar, and ladled it out to a hungry nation.
    • At around 10:00pm on a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Officer John Mee pulled over a 2006 Lexus LS 430 racing at 85 miles per hour to find a very intoxicated Mel Gibson inside it. Despite Gibson's high blood-alcohol level, Mee reported that Gibson cooperated-- until Mee arrested him. That's when Gibson took on a very different tone; he let fly a string of anti-semitic remarks and profanities, including these memorable comments:
    • "You mother f****r. I'm going to f*** you."
    • "F***ing Jews...Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."
    • Gibson also claimed to own Malibu. Yep, the city of Malibu.
    • At the police station, he yelled to an unidentified female sergeant asking what she thought she was looking at: in all likelihood, Gibson could not properly read the officer's name tag, so he went with the classy alternative of "sugar t**s." The story quickly leaked to the press after TMZ obtained a copy of Mee's incident report.
    • In the aftermath Gibson would be lambasted by tabloids, condemned by the Anti-Defamation League, and called a racist publicly by incensed Jewish celebrities. He would apologize profusely, plead no contest to misdemeanor drunk driving, go to rehab, and talk to Diane Sawyer about his lifelong struggle with being a jerk.
    • While most celebrity criminal incidents have no lasting impact on society, Gibson's brush with the law actually helped to change the law. In October 2007, "Mel's Law" was passed in California; the law criminalized the sale of privileged information (a police report, for example) that pertains to an arrest of a high-profile suspect (a celebrity, for example). Way to go, Mel.

Hugh Grant

  • Submitted By: Jonathan h
    • Crime: Lewd Conduct
    • Fifteen days before the release of his summer comedy Nine Months, Hugh Grant was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department after he was discovered engaging in oral sex with a prostitute in a public place. Though many speculated that the arrest was purely a publicity stunt for Grant, it was prostitute Divine Brown who benefited the most from the incident, parlaying her sudden fame into interviews and endorsements totaling over $1.5 million.
    • Grant was fined $1,180 dollars, ordered to complete an AIDS educational prgram, and put on two years of probation. Grant was arrested again in April 2007 when photographer Ian Whittaker alleged that the actor assaulted him. Those charges were dropped a few months later.
  • YouTube: Hugh Grant Assault in Nine Months (Time: 2:29)


  • CNN: Hugh Grant Scandal

Natasha Lyonne

  • Submitted By: Lon
    • Crime: Criminal Mischief, Harassment and Trespassing
    • In December of 2004, Lyonne was alleged to have angrily stormed into a female neighbor's apartment and, among other things, threatened to molest the woman's dog. And not in a beating-around-the-bush implied sort of way. Those exact words: "I'm going to molest your dog."
    • Lyonne skipped her first four court appearances on the charges, and a bench warrant had to be issued to get her to appear. But she never served time for her mirror-bashing, canine-threatening rampage; the charges were dropped after Lyonne agreed to complete a drug rehabilitation program, pay $2,000 in restitution and avoid getting arrested again for six months.

Paul McCartney

  • Submitted By: Evan
    • Crime: Drug Possession
    • In 1980, the ex-Beatle affectionately referred to as "the cute one" was caught in a Japanese airport with half a pound of pot in his suitcase. Now, this isn't like when Michael Vick was caught with some marijuana residue in his water bottle. We're not dealing with McCartney stuffing a little weed into his toothpaste tube to smuggle in. This is more like Macca had to leave one of his favorite Hawaiian shirts at home because his pot bricks took up too much space in the suitcase.
    • Maybe he just wanted to have a good-sized stash for his Japanese tour, but he probably shocked a number of people who thought all Paul was interested in was holding your hand. But I suppose no one should be too surprised, considering he wrote a number of "ode to drugs" songs including "Got to Get You Into My Life," which McCartney admitted was all about marijuana. Good thing money can't buy him love, because he has plenty of other things to spend it on, apparently!
  • YouTube: Paul McCartney Busted in Japan, January 1980 (Time: 2:36)


  • The Rock Radio: Paul McCartney: Busted in Japan (May 8, 2007)

George Michael

  • Submitted By: Lon
    • Crime: Lewd Conduct
    • In 1998, George Michael was arrested in Beverly Hills for behavior that's not entirely clear and somewhat difficult to discuss on a family website. In a public restroom in Will Rogers Park, across the street from the Beverly Hills Hotel, Michael did something with a plain clothes police officer that constitutes lewd conduct. (As with the Larry Craig case, Michael was caught by an undercover cop, who was part of a sting operation designed to catch naughty men's room perverts).
    • Michael, who gave the cops his real name (Georgios Panayiotou) and identified himself as a singer, was out of jail in a few hours and eventually sentenced to pay an $810 fine and complete 80 hours of community service. He later told the press that he may have been looking to get arrested as a way of escaping a chaotic period in his life and forcing himself to open up about his sexual orientation.
    • Michael has since mocked his involvement in the scandal, parodying the scenario in the TV series Extras and in the video for his song, "Outside."

Eddie Murphy

  • Submitted By: Lon
    • Crime: N/A
    • In 1997, comedian Eddie Murphy was pulled over at around 4:45 am in West Hollywood with a 20-year-old Samoan transvestite prostitute named Atisone Seiuli in his car. Seiuli was arrested, but Murphy was not, and the star of Coming to America and Beverly Hills Cop has always denied that there was anything untoward going on in that car. He told Entertainment Tonight at the time: "I love my wife and I'm not gay. I'm married with three children. I'm not going to be out there screwing hookers off the street or anything like that. I'm just being a nice guy... I was being a good Samaritan. It's not the first hooker I've helped out."
    • As you might expect, this incident plagued Murphy for years. Tabloids spread rumors about Murphy's homosexuality and Murphy affairs with drag queens, over which he unsuccessfully sued. The revelation was brought up during his 2006 divorce proceedings from wife Nicole Mitchell. Even Murphy's old show, Saturday Night Live, started doing sketches about "Good Samaritan Eddie Murphy" (played by Tim Meadows), heroically intervening to save prostitutes and drive them where they need to go.

Bill Murray

  • Submitted By: Markf
    • Crime: DUI
    • In August of 2007, Bill Murray was arrested in Stockholm, Sweden for driving under the influence around the city in...a golf cart. My favorite aspect of this particular incident is that Murray refused to blow in the breathalyzer instrument, citing American legislation. Instead he took a blood test that would take 14 days to get the results... just enough time for him to get out of the country.

Nick Nolte

  • Submitted By: Travis
    • Crime: DUI
    • Creative Commons image by "The Smoking Gun"
      Creative Commons image by "The Smoking Gun"
    • After he was arrested in 2002 for Driving Under the Influence in Malibu, CA, Nick Nolte took what is perhaps one of the most recognizable celebrity mugshots. It was later proven that Nolte was under the influence of the "date rape" drug, GHB. The officer who pulled Nolte over described the actor as "drooling" and "completely out of it."
    • To which Nolte may have replied, in the style of Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski: "Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man." Speculation as to the reason for the actor's reckless driving ranged from a burning "roach" to "evading nihilists."
  • The Smoking Gun: Nick Nolte Arrest
  • CBS News: Nick Nolte In DUI Arrest (September 12, 2002)
  • BBC News: Nolte could face drugs charges (September 13, 2002)

Ozzy Osbourne

  • Submitted By: Deanmachine777
    • Crime: Defiling a National Monument
    • While on tour in San Antonio, Texas, in 1982, renowned bat-biter, dove-muncher, and future reality TV patriarch Ozzy Osbourne found himself stuck in his hotel room without any clothes—the result of a ploy by his new wife Sharon Osbourne to keep him from drunkenly wandering the streets and getting into trouble (as was his nightly M.O.). So the Oz Man, sufficiently sauced since noon, decided to don a nice new dress of his wife's and hit the town running! Or perhaps staggering...
    • Before long nature called, and Ozzy found the nearest suitable structure on which to piddle: the Alamo. It's tough not to get caught defiling the largest continental state's most sacred establishment, and soon it was back in front of the mug shot camera for the real "Iron Man." Ozzy was immediately banned for life from showing his face in San Antone, and in response to such poor treatment he had 1,000 rolls of toilet paper printed with the American flag so he could wipe himself with Old Glory. Also since that awful day in history, the image of '666' has been slowly appearing on the exact area of the Alamo that was desecrated, a sign for most Texans that the Apocalypse is nigh.
    • Update: OK, so the structure Ozzy peed on was actually the Cenotaph in front of the Alamo (which was a worse choice, in fact—it's an "empty tomb" shrine dedicated to the fallen), so the '666' story might not be accurate. And Ozzy says he never printed the T.P., and in fact calls the incident one of his biggest regrets; he donated $10K to the Alamo's caretakers and was asked back to perform in the city in 1992. And police accounts say he wasn't even wearing the dress when apprehended. But other than that it's all true.

Roman Polanski

  • Submitted By: Jonathan h
    • Crime: Unlawful Sexual Intercourse with a Minor
    • "Alright. You've got two minutes. Pitch."
    • "We open in March of 1977. A famous filmmaker gets to edit an issue of French Vogue. He convinces this woman to let him take photographs of her 13-year-old daughter. They go to his house and he takes some pictures but he also asks her to take off her clothes. She freaks out and leaves, but there's quite a bit of money in it for this family, so the mother convinces her daughter to go back for a second photo shoot. They hold the photo shoot at Jack Nicholson's house. As she enters the house, we cut to the next day where the LAPD is interviewing both the director and the girl. She says that he forced her to drink champagne laced with quaaludes and sexually assaulted her. The director, meanwhile, says that the whole thing is a set up meant to blackmail him and milk him out of money.
    • "The filmmaker makes a plea bargain, but someone tips him that the judge is going to throw the thing out and sentence him to jail for fifty years, so he skips the country. The third act is all about him making these really violent films that reference the incident and how his previous wife was murdered. Oh, I didn't mention that? Yeah, his wife was killed by the Manson Family back in the 60s because they thought she was Candice Bergen and they listened too much to some song by The Beatles. So, what do you think?"
    • "Get out of my office."

Paul Reubens

  • Submitted By: Adam
  • Paul Reubens' Mug Shot
    Paul Reubens' Mug Shot
    • Crime: Indecent Exposure
    • "There's a lot of things about me that you don't know anything about, Dottie. Things you wouldn't understand. Things you couldn't understand. Things you shouldn't understand. You don't want to get mixed up with a guy like me. I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel."
    • Unfortunately, on July 26, 1991, the public learned just how much if a loner Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens really was, when he was caught masturbating in an x-rated theater in Sarasota Florida. His arrest for indecent exposure created a media frenzy that ruined his career as a children's performer and tarnished the once innocent and beloved installation of many of our childhoods.
    • Personally, I think this whole incident stinks of an elaborate set-up orchestrated by Francis Buxton to get Pee-Wee behind bars and away from his bike. I hope James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild are still available to reprise their roles as PW and Dottie for the 3 hour long Oliver Stone film version of this conspiracy.

Mickey Rourke

  • Submitted By: Julia
    • Crime: DUI
    • In November 2007, Mickey Rourke was arrested by Miami police for failing a sobriety test after making an illegal u-turn on a scooter. That's right. A scooter. A Vespa, to be specific. He spends all that time building up his badass cred with a boxing career, an appearance in Sin City and alleged ties to the IRA, and he undoes it all with a goofy goateed mugshot and a mod bike. The only thing that might restore Rourke's machismo is finding out that he beat up the cast of Quadrophenia to get his hands on the two-wheeler.

Winona Ryder

  • Submitted By: Julia
    • Crime: Grand Theft, Vandalism
    • Maybe she was trying to get in touch with the bored, sullen teenager she never got to be because she was so busy playing them, but it's really anybody's best guess as to why Winona Ryder knocked over the Beverly Hills' Saks for $5,560.40 worth of designer merch. Ryder got picked up in December of 2001 and was eventually charged with grand theft and vandalism. While she could have been sentenced with up to three years behind bars, the LA County court was a bit more generous back in the days before celebutantes were rolling in on a regular basis. Ryder got off with three years' probation, 480 community service hours and $3,700 in fines.

DMX

  • Submitted By: Andrew m
    • Crime: Impersonating an FBI Agent
    • On June 24, 2004, just weeks after the premiere of his starring role in Never Die Alone, rapper/actor DMX decided to direct his own crime thriller in the parking lot of New York's Kennedy Airport. He and a friend, Jackie Hudgins, identified themselves as undercover FBI agents to a security attendant, ordering him to open a gate. The ploy failed, but the pair, undeterred, proceeded to crash through the gate in DMX's Ford Expedition which was outfitted law-enforcement-style, with lights and sirens.
    • Later, DMX and Hudgins tried to force a man from his vehicle—again claiming to be undercover federal agents. As it turned out, the police weren't fooled either: DMX was arrested and charged with, among other things, criminal impersonation, criminal mischief, and... possession of crack cocaine. In the words of the late Rick James, "Cocaine is a hell of a drug."

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Rick James

  • Submitted By: Djinn1973
    • Crimes: Assault, Imprisonment, Drug Charges
    • On August 2, 1991, the late Rick James and his then-girlfriend Tanya Anne Hijazi were arrested for holding a woman prisoner for two days and burning her with a crack pipe. James ended up spending two years in Folsom Prison for the crimes (as well as a separate charge that he beat and held captive another woman for 20 hours). I guess cocaine really is a hell of a drug!
    • James has called the prison term a blessing in disguise. He claimed to have written 300 while behind bars. And a full six years after the arrest, in 1997, James and Hijazi were married.

Willie Nelson

  • Submitted By: Matt.s
    • Crime: Misdemeanor Drug Possession
    • During a September 18, 2006 traffic stop on country star Willie Nelson's tour bus, police found 1-1/2 pounds of pot and a bag of mushrooms, enough to get misdemeanor drug possession citations filed against Nelson and four of his colleagues. (They could have been charged with a felony, but each man claimed the drugs as his own and they weren't packaged for individual sale). Here's the thing...Nelson was 73 at the time! It almost feels like they should just let him get away with it at that point. How much damage can he really do?

Wesley Snipes

  • Submitted By: Alexdegruven
    • Crime: Failure to File Tax Returns
    • Wesley Snipes, in addition to claiming fraudulent tax refunds totaling $12 million for 1996 and 1997, apparently paid no taxes whatsoever between 1999 and 2004. His lawyer later claimed that he had been the victim of "bad tax advice," which would have to be some kind of massive understatement. "Don't bother to save all your receipts," that would be bad tax advice. "You, famous movie star Wesley Snipes, need pay no taxes at all" is something altogether different.

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Michael Vick | Nick Nolte | Mel Gibson | Jim Morrison | Johnny Cash | Bill Murray | DMX | Robert Downey Jr. | Winona Ryder | Mickey Rourke | Paul Reubens | Nicole Richie | Hugh Grant | Roman Polanski | Ozzy Osbourne | Paul McCartney | Natasha Lyonne | Eddie Murphy | George Michael