35+ celebrities that went to jail or currently rotting in jail (updated list)
The life of a celebrity is not always glamorous, and the pressures of fame do not always come without consequences. Over the years, there have been many celebrities who have been arrested for various offences. However, not all of them committed serious crimes. Are there any celebrities that went to jail or are currently rotting in jail?
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Seeing celebrities whose legal woes have landed them in prison is a sobering reminder that what glitters is not always gold. Some of these celebrities that went to jail were able to turn their lives around, make a comeback, and build successful careers. Even though they live freely, they remain people who went to jail.
List of celebrities who went to jail
Usually, celebrities feel they live in their world and abide by their own rules. Some famous celebrities have gone to prison on charges ranging from tax fraud to sexual assault and even murder. Below are the famous people who went to jail:
1. Robert Downey Jr.
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Robert is a celebrated American actor. In 1999, he missed a harmful substances test and was sentenced to three years in jail. Downey served for a year before he was finally released. Despite being arrested several times for substance abuse, he starred in several films, such as Avengers and Iron Man.
2. Martha Stewart
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Martha is a businesswoman, writer, and actress. On June 4, 2003, she was vindicated by the government on nine charges relating to insider trading about stock she sold before the price went down. Martha pleaded guilty and served six months in jail. She currently runs her TV show, The Martha Stewart Show.
3. Tim Allen
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Tim Allen went to prison after attempting to traffic over 650 grams of harmful substances in 1978 at the Kalamazoo International Airport in Michigan. He avoided a lifetime in prison after giving information about other dealers. He ended up serving about two years and was paroled in 1981.
4. Mark Wahlberg
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At 16 years old, Mark harmed two Vietnamese men, and the offences were found to be unprovoked. After pleading guilty to both counts, he was sentenced to two years in prison but only served 45 days of that sentence. He is now a celebrated actor and a successful businessman.
5. Amber Portwood
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In June 2012, Amber was sentenced to five years in prison after violating probation for felony harmful substance possession charges in 2011. She served a little over a year and was released in early November 2013.
6. Mike Tyson
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Tyson is arguably the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. He was charged with assaulting his ex-wife and an 18-year-old. He was sentenced to six years but was out after three. To this day, Mike Tyson is known as "The Baddest Man on the Planet". He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990.
7. Lindsay Lohan
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Lohan is an actress, but drinking and using harmful substances dominated her life. She was arrested numerous times for driving under the influence of alcohol. She has been to jail three times but has never stayed there for long.
8. Wesley Snipes
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Wesley was put behind bars in 2010 for willful failure to file federal income tax returns. He was released in April 2013. He continues to star in several TV shows and movies, with his recent Coming 2 America released in 2021. He also appeared as Doc in The Expendables 3.
9. Chris Brown
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In 2013, Brown was sentenced to 131 days in prison for violating his probation for assaulting Rihanna. He was released in June 2014 after serving three weeks of his term. He was later sued for allegedly assaulting a woman in Florida.
10. Tommy Lee
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In 1998, Tommy served six months in county jail after being arrested for kicking Anderson during an argument. He served six months in county jail for the incident. Lee went on to have a prolific music career as a solo artist.
11. O J Simpson
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In 1994, Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her new partner Ron Goldman. Somehow, he was acquitted of the murders. In 2007, he was found guilty of armed robbery and kidnapping. He was sentenced to 33 years but ended up serving nine years and was released in 2017.
12. Felicity Huffman
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On October 15, 2019, the Oscar nominee was found guilty of paying someone to proctor and correct her daughter's college board testing, which resulted in an increase of 400 points over what she had earned on the PSATs. She was found guilty and was sentenced to serve 14 days in jail.
13. Lauryn Hil
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Lauryn served a three-month sentence for tax evasion and was released in October 2013. She quickly returned to music and dropped a single on the eve of her exiting jail.
14. Danny Trejo
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At just ten years old, Trejo was arrested for the first time. He would later spend another eleven years in and out of prison for robbery. In 1965, he was caught selling harmful substances. He was sentenced to five years in jail.
15. James Brown
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James was sentenced for assault, possession, and domestic violence. His most publicized arrest was being convicted for carrying an unlicensed pistol, assaulting a police officer, and other offences. He was sentenced to six years but only served two.
16. Lil Kim
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Lil is an American rapper who was convicted in 2005 on three counts of conspiracy and one count of perjury for lying to a Federal grand jury. She lied about a shooting her friend was involved in. She did one year at the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia and 30 days of home detention.
17. Phil Spector
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Phil was a celebrated American musician and producer indulging in harmful substances. On February 3, 2003, he shot actress Lana Clarkson in the mouth at his mansion. He was found guilty of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 19 years.
18. Chuck Berry
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Berry had a successful music career until 1959, when he was arrested for allegedly engaging in sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old waitress. He was sentenced to five years in prison. He appealed and ended up serving one and a half years.
19. Charles Dutton
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Dutton is an actor and producer best known for the TV show Roc. In 1967, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 5 years. He was paroled in 1976.
20. Lil Wayne
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In 2010, Wayne was sentenced to one year behind bars for possessing an unlicensed firearm. He served eight months before he was released. In January 2012, he published a memoir about his hard time in prison.
21. Merle Haggard
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Before his fame, Haggard spent time in and out of prison. He was arrested in 1957 for attempted robbery and sentenced to three years in prison. He was released in 1960 and became a country music star over the next decade.
22. Jared Fogle
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Jared is an American actor known for Jack and Jill. In November 2015, he pleaded guilty to paying for sexual intercourse with underage girls. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. His earliest possible release date is March 2029.
23. Mike Sorrentino
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On October 5, 2018, Mike, best known as the Situation from MTV's Jersey Shore, was sentenced to eight months in prison for not paying his taxes. Additionally, he was sentenced to two years of supervised release, 500 hours of community service upon release, and a $10,000 fine.
24. Sean Penn
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Sean is an Oscar winner and no stranger to volatile outbursts. In 1987, Penn was sentenced to 60 days after punching an extra on the set of his film Colours while on probation from two prior assaults. He only served a fraction of that time.
25. Julian Assange
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In 2019, Assange was arrested for breaching the Bail Act and was sentenced to 50 weeks in prison. Even though his jail term ended, he remains incarcerated in HM Prison Belmarsh in London.
26. Bill Cosby
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In 2018, Bill was sentenced to 10 years in prison for assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004. Several other women came forward with similar allegations putting more wait on his offences. In 2021, his conviction was overturned, and he was released.
27. Ja Rule
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The Cookout actor Ja Rule spent over two years in prison for unauthorized gun possession. He was later added 28 months for failure to pay his taxes. He was later released that year.
28. Dustin Diamond
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Dustin, who starred in the movie Saved by the Bell, was sentenced to four months in January 2016. He was charged with disorderly conduct and carrying a concealed weapon. In 2015, he was cleared of felony charges.
29. Joshua Duggar
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Joshua is the eldest child of the Duggar family. He was arrested on April 29, 2021, for receiving and possessing explicit videos involving children. In May 2022, he was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in federal prison.
30. Monica Bedi
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Bedi is a Bollywood actress. She was arrested in Lisbon, Portugal, in September 2002 for travelling with a fake passport. She was jailed and released in July 2007, having spent nearly five years in prison. She resumed her career in 2014.
31. 50 Cent
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In 1994, rapper-turned-actor 50 Cent spent six months in a correctional boot camp for multiple charges related to harmful substances. He was only 16 years old at the time of his incarceration.
32. Lillo Brancato
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Lillo is an actor and producer. In December 2005, he was arrested and charged with the second-degree murder of an off-duty NYPD police officer. In January 2009, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and released in 2013.
33. TI
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In 2009, the House of Lies actor spent more than six months in prison on federal weapons charges. The rapper spent an additional three months at a halfway house in Atlanta.
34. Harvey Weinstein
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In March 2020, Harvey, a Hollywood producer, was sentenced to 23 years in prison after being found guilty of a criminal sexual act. He is currently in a Los Angeles county jail awaiting another trial to face charges of sexual assault.
35. DMX
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Earl Simmons, known by his stage name DMX, was an American rapper and actor. In July 2017, he was charged for failing to file tax returns. He was sentenced to prison and was released in January 2019. He died on April 9, 2021, aged 50.
36. Lane Garrison
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Lane is an American actor and writer from Texas, best known for the TV series Prison Break. In October 2007, he pleaded guilty to drunk driving and providing alcohol to a minor. He was imprisoned and released in April 2009 after serving 17 months.
Who is the youngest person in jail?
Mary Bell is the youngest person to go to jail. She committed her first murder in 1968 when she was 10. Her murders targeted preschool boys, who died at Bell's hands.
Who is the youngest person to get a life sentence?
Lionel Tate was the youngest person in modern US history to be sentenced to life imprisonment. Tate was 12 years old at the time of the murder, and his victim was 6.
What is the largest jail in the US?
Louisiana State Penitentiary is the largest correctional facility in the United States by population.
Do celebrities get treated differently in jail?
Celebrities in federal prison are no different than any other prisoner. Treating them differently can create problems with others within the prison.
Are there underground prisons?
Einsargen Subterranean Prison is a secret underground prison in Germany run by the United States. The facility was constructed in the deepest mine shaft in East Germany.
Why do celebrities get less jail time?
They have the money to afford high-end attorneys to get someone out of nearly any charge. At the same time, because of their fame, they may be able to call in a favour or use connections to get them out of such crimes.
Are there luxury prisons in the USA?
San Quentin Prison is located next to San Francisco, California, and is known as one of the world's most humane and luxurious prisons.
What is it like in jail?
The time spent in jails is quite boring since there is little to do but watch television, talk to other inmates, sleep, and otherwise bide one's time until their sentence is completed.
Above are some of the many celebrities that went to jail, and some are still there. These celebrities are often the people many kids look up to while growing up. Nevertheless, some make mistakes that sometimes get them into trouble with the law.
READ ALSO: List of maximum prisons in South Africa 2022 | Worst prisons in SA
Briefly.co.za reported about the maximum prisons in South Africa in 2022. A prison, also known as a detention centre, is a facility in which inmates are confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as punishment for various crimes.
Source: Briefly News
