The life of Hollywood stars (and some Spanish ones) is not always rosy. In fact, quite a few celebrities have changed the carpets red and film sets through the gray cells from North American prisons for some serious crime.
People like Sean Penn, Robert Downey Jr. or Mark Wahlberg, among others that we review in this article, have spent time in prison, although the majority have managed to pay off your debt to society and redirect the course of their lives.
Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby | Gettty Images
When we talk about famous actors in prison, probably one of the names that first comes to mind is Bill Cosby, the popular comedy actor and once one of the most beloved men in the United States, who turned out to be a criminal sexual. In 2018, Cosby was sentenced to 10 years in prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in his home in 2004, and several women subsequently came forward with similar stories. However, although his image was totally damaged, In 2021 his conviction was overturned and the actor was released from prison.
Tim Allen
Tim Allen | Getty
Another of America’s most beloved sitcom actors, Tim Allen, went to prison, although the striking thing about his case is that this happened before he became famous with A Botched House. Allen was arrested at the Michigan airport in 1978 in possession of just over half a kilo of cocaine. After declaring guilty of drug trafficking, He could have faced life in prison, but he reached a plea deal in exchange for giving the names of 21 other traffickers with whom he was involved. Finally he received a sentence of three to seven years, but of those only turned two years old and four months.
Mark Wahlberg
Mark Wahlberg | Getty
Also before fame as an actor and underwear model was the arrest of Mark Wahlberg, for an incident that occurred when he was only 16 years old. He fulfilled alone 45 days of a sentence 90, for an attack with a lethal weapon on a man (although it did not end in death) and possession of substances. His victim, Johnny Trinh, later said publicly that he forgave young Mark for what happened.
Robert Downey Jr.
Robert Downey Jr. with his Oscar | Gtres
Marvel star Robert Downey Jr., whom we will see soon as Doctor Doom In the new Avengers movie, he has a tumultuous past. In 1999 he was sentenced to three years in prison for several drug related incidents and failure to comply with court orders, although he was released in August 2000, after spending some less than a year in chirona However, his problems did not end there and he was hooked on cocaine until 2005, a time when he redirected his life and career.
Wesley Snipes
Wesley Snipes | Getty
Wesley Snipes, a star especially in the nineties thanks to titles such as White People Don’t Know How to Get In, Demolition Man or Blade, passed two years and four months imprisoned and another three under house arrest between 2010 and 2013. The reason? A crime of tax evasion. He owed the US Internal Revenue Service $23.5 million in back taxes on earnings from 2001 to 2006.
Felicity Huffman
Felicity Huffman, actress of ‘Desperate Housewives’ | getty
Desperate Housewives actress Felicity Huffman, Oscar-nominated for Transamerica, had a much shorter sentence than other stars cited in this article: only two weeks in jail. Of course, he was one of the best-known faces of the Varsity Blues scandal, a fraud network to sneak children of rich people with bad grades into good universities. Huffman would have paid $15,000 for her daughter to have good grades on the SAT (the equivalent of our Selectivity). The also actress Lori Loughlin, from Forced Parents, was another of those convicted in this plot.
Sean Penn
Sean Penn | Getty
Y 33 days were those who went into the shadows Sean Penn, after a sentence of 60 for having stuck to an extra on the filming of the movie Colors, in 1987. The curious thing is that Penn was already on parole when that happened: a year earlier he had been arrested for attacking a musician in a club in Los Angeles, supposedly because he had tried to kiss to Madonna, then the actor’s partner.
Ryan Grantham
Actor Ryan Grantham, sentenced to prison | The CW
This case was surprising, not so much because of the fame of the protagonist, who was a child and youth actor from series and movies like Riverdale or Greg’s diary, but because of how macabre the events were: Ryan Grantham murdered his mother shot in cold blood while she was playing the piano at home. A couple of years ago, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, in Canada, sentenced life sentence to the boy, who was 24 years old at the time. The sentence contemplates the possibility of conditional release after serving at least 14 years in prison.
Danny Masterson
The ’70s Wonderland actor, Danny Masterson | getty
Another very high-profile recent case was that of Danny Masterson, best known for That ’70s Show, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison last year, after being found guilty of rape two women15 years in prison for each of the victims. Masterson also faced a charge of raping a third woman, his ex-girlfriend, but the jury did not reach an agreement on this case. This trial was even more controversial when it was learned that the three women were members of the Church of Scientology, like the actor, when the events occurred in the early 2000s, and they assured that when they told what had happened the church told them. He denied and went against them. It was also very popular the letter in his defense of actors Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis.
Joselito
Joselito in Saeta del ruiseñor | Suevia Films
Among the Spanish cases, perhaps the most famous is that of José Jiménez Fernández, better known by his stage name, Joselito, or the nickname “the little nightingale.” Joselito starred in fourteen films during his childhood, but when he grew up and his voice changed, the industry left him aside. He was no longer the boy everyone wanted to see on screen. In 1991, it was dheld in Valencia in possession of 78 grams of cocaine, and although he tried to defend himself by saying that he was a user and not a trafficker, he was sentenced to five years of prison for attack against public health. Some time later, he would go so far as to say that going to prison was the best thing that had ever happened to him, since ahI overcame addiction and channeled his life.
