Celebrity criminals: Where are they now?
They’re the Hollywood superstars who hit rock bottom when they ended up in jail. Some have never recovered while others managed to make incredible career comebacks.
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They’re the Hollywood superstars who hit rock bottom when they ended up in jail. Some have never recovered while others managed to make incredible career comebacks.
These are the celebrity crimes that shocked the world — and where the stars behind them have ended up.
O.J. Simpson
He was famously found not guilty in the murder trial of the century after being accused of the murders of his ex-wife and her friend.
Twenty-five years after the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, O.J. Simpson is living in Las Vegas and trying to stay in what he calls the “no negative zone” rather than think about the killings.
Two years after Simpson’s shock murder acquittal in 1995, the Goldman and Brown families were awarded a $33.5 million wrongful death judgment against Simpson.
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The former NFL great later served nine years for a robbery-kidnapping conviction in Las Vegas.
At the age of 71, he is now free and keeping a low profile in Sin City.
Bizarrely, Simpson is among the most sought-after figures in Las Vegas for selfies with tourists who encounter him at restaurants or athletic events he attends occasionally.
He plays golf daily and has had two knee replacements as well as laser eye surgery.
In an interview with the Associated Press last week, Simpson said he wanted to move forward and not discuss the horrific murders of Nicole Brown Simpson, the mother of his two youngest children, and Ron Goldman.
“We don’t need to go back and relive the worst day of our lives,” Simpson said. “The subject of the moment is the subject I will never revisit again. My family and I have moved on to what we call the ‘no negative zone.’ We focus on the positives.”
His comments enraged Fred Goldman, the father of Ron Goldman, who told the Daily Mail “he is the negative zone”.
“He has no concern he took two lives. He is a low-life sociopathic murderer. He gets to breathe every day. That’s more than Ron and Nicole ever have had for 25 years.
“I don’t think he cares. I don’t think he has an ounce of soul or remorse.”
Martha Stewart
It was the case that shocked America. Domestic goddess and business guru Martha Stewart — famed for frosting cookies and designing luxury homewares — ended up in the slammer.
At the height of her fame in 2004, Stewart spent five months at a minimum-security federal prison in West Virginia. After that she had five months of house confinement.
Stewart was acquitted of insider trading, but found guilty of lying to federal investigators.
But despite speculation that the jail time would harm her career, Stewart came out fighting.
She went on to stage a comeback, resuming control over her successful multimedia company. She also published additional cookbooks and is now enjoying ongoing success with rapper Snoop Dogg in an odd couple cooking show on VH1.
Stewart even appeared on the cover of Fortune with the headline: Martha Stewart: From Prison to Prime Time: ‘I cannot be destroyed’.
Stewart recently opened up to Katie Couric about the “horrifying experience” of prison time saying nothing good came out it.
“It was horrifying, and no one — no one — should have to go through that kind of indignity, really, except for murderers, and there are a few other categories,” she told Couric on the former Today host’s podcast. “But no one should have to go through that. It’s a very, very awful thing.”
Asked if she found prison “a growth experience,” Stewart said nothing good emerged.
“That you can make lemons out of lemonade? What hurts you makes you stronger? No. None of those adages fit at all. It’s a horrible experience. Nothing is good about it, nothing,” she said.
Phil Spector
He was the legendary music producer whose “Wall of Sound” revolutionised rock and pop, working with The Beatles, Tina Turner and the Ramones.
But Phil Spector is now serving life in prison over the horrific murder of actress Lana Clarkson.
Clarkson was working as a hostess at the iconic club The Houe of Blues on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip when she met Spector in the early hours of February 3, 2003.
She returned with him to his suburban chateau-style mansion where she died of a gunshot fired in her mouth.
Spector claimed Clarkson’s death was an “accidental suicide”.
But according to the prosecution, Spector had previously pulled a gun on four women.
In each case, he had been drinking and “was romantically interested in the woman, but grew angry after the woman spurned him”.
The prosecution alleged that on each occasion, he pointed a gun at the woman to prevent her from walking out.
On September 26, 2007, Judge Fidler declared a mistrial because of a hung jury.
The retrial began over a year later and the jury returned a guilty verdict.
Spector is serving his sentence at the California State Prison in Stockton, California and will be aged 88 before becoming eligible for parole.
Bill Cosby
Once one of the world’s most beloved entertainers living a life of unbelievable wealth, Bill Cosby is now a disgraced sex offender doing time at a maximum-security prison.
Cosby is serving three to 10 years in a state prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home 15 years ago.
The 81-year-old is imprisoned at SCI Phoenix, outside Philadelphia. He was recently moved to the prison’s general population. In February, he called himself a “political prisoner.”
According to Radar Online, he has decorated his prison cell with images of Meghan Markle and Kris Jenner.
The mountain of allegations against Cosby — known to millions as the family man TV character Cliff Huxtable in The Cosby Show — is truly shocking.
At least 58 women have accused him of sexual misconduct over a span of several decades when he was one of the most successful men in show business.
He allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted many of his victims after offering to mentor them or help them with the careers.
Many of his accusers claim to have blacked out after he spiked their drinks.
Cosby has denied the allegations and is appealing against his conviction. He is also facing civil actions in California.
Mike Tyson
At the height of his fame, former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson served three years for the rape of 18-year-old beauty queen Desiree Washington in an Indianapolis hotel room.
Tyson has always steadfastly maintained his innocence and claimed in court that the encounter was consensual.
Released in 1995, Tyson had converted to Islam and was on a mission to reboot his career.
But he shocked the world when he bit a chunk out of Evander Holyfield’s ear during a 1997 match.
When Tyson filed for bankruptcy in 2003, he was reportedly $23 million in debt.
He then went on to stage yet another comeback, with a memorable appearance in the blockbuster comedy The Hangover in 2009 and then the sequel two years later.
Today, Tyson is spending time with his family and mentoring young boxers.
He also plans to build a marijuana-themed holiday resort in California which he is calling “the Lollapalooza of cannabis”.
Tyson, The Sun reports, is taking advantage of the state’s legalisation of recreational marijuana and runs the Tyson Cultivation School to teach farmers how to grow and develop their strains.
Mark Wahlberg
Mark Wahlberg is one of Hollywood’s most successful actors. But his criminal history, stemming from his teenage years in the tough Boston suburb of Dorchester, is well-known.
Before he became famous as rapper Marky Mark, Wahlberg served 45 days in prison after being charged with racially motivated attempted murder and was ultimately convicted of assault.
On April 8, 1988, Wahlberg physically attacked two Vietnamese-American men while he was trying to steal two cases of beer from a convenience store.
Reports state that the actor used several racial slurs during the attack.
Wahlberg, the younger brother New Kid on The Bock star Donnie, claimed he was not motivated by race and blamed his actions on intoxication.
Decades later, Wahlberg, a devout Catholic, father of four and philanthropist, made a much publicised — and much debated — request for a pardon for his crime.
But now, another of Wahlberg’s victims, African-American woman he attacked in 1986 — says the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shouldn’t forgive and forget hate crimes, even if they were committed by a movie star.
“I don’t think he should get a pardon,” Kristyn Atwood told the Associated Press. She was a Boston fourth grader on a field trip to the beach when Wahlberg and his partners-in-crime threw rocks and yelled racial epithets, including the n-word, at her and her classmates.
“I don’t really care who he is,” she said. “It doesn’t make him any exception. If you’re a racist, you’re always going to be a racist. And for him to want to erase it I just think it’s wrong … It was a hate crime and that’s exactly what should be on his record forever.”
Lindsay Lohan
The promising career of former child star Lindsay Lohan was spectacularly derailed with her tragic lifestyle choices.
The Disney star morphed into a chain-smoking party girl, hanging out at nightclubs with Paris Hilton.
The wild ride ended in 2007, the year Lohan was arrested for a DUI after crashing her Mercedes into trees in Beverly Hills.
Police told TMZ they also found a “usable amount” of cocaine at the scene and Lohan was taken to hospital.
Lohan’s convoluted path through the criminal courts system and her struggle with drugs and alcohol ended up taking her to court 19 times and to five rehab facilities for a total of 250 days.
After the 2007 car crash, Lohan was charged with seven misdemeanours and pleaded guilty to two counts of being under the influence of cocaine and pleaded no contest to driving under the influence.
She was given a 24-hour jail sentence and ordered to complete an 18-month substance abuse education class as well as rehab.
Having been in and out of rehab over the years, Lohan is now clean.
Her most recent venture was an MTV docuseries called Lohan Beach House, which followed Lohan as she opened a beach house in Mykonos, Greece. The series ended earlier this year.
Robert Downey Jr
He’s the highest paid actor in Hollywood and the highest-grossing box office star of all time, starring as the Marvel Comics superhero Iron Man in ten films.
But before he staged the biggest comeback in show business, Robert Downey Jr nearly lost it all due to his long-running battle with substance abuse.
The charismatic star had a troubled childhood and was introduced to marijuana by his drug addict father at the age of just six.
He went on to attain Hollywood stardom in the Brat Pack era and was nominated for an Academy Award before his drug use threatened to wipe out his career.
From 1996 through 2001, Downey was arrested numerous times on charges related to drugs including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.
He went through drug treatment programs unsuccessfully, explaining in 1999 to a judge: “It’s like I have a shotgun in my mouth, and I’ve got my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal.”
In April 1996, Downey was arrested for possession of heroin, cocaine, and an unloaded .357 Magnum handgun while he was speeding down Sunset Boulevard.
A month later, while on parole, he trespassed into a neighbour’s home while under the influence of a controlled substance, and fell asleep in one of the beds.
In 1999, after numerous court appearances, he was sentenced to a three-year prison term at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran, California.
Upon his release — after five years of substance abuse, arrests, rehab, and relapse — Downey was ready to work towards a full recovery from drugs, and a return to his career.
He managed to stage one of the biggest comebacks in Hollywood history.
Drug free since 2003, he was cast in a number of leading and supporting roles before appearing in the blockbusters Iron Man and Tropic Thunder.
He recently wowed audiences in Avengers: Endgame and will soon be seen in The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle.
Lil’ Kim
Grammy-winning rapper Lil’ Kim doesn’t just make music about the gangsta life — she lives and breathes it.
After a tough upbringing in Brooklyn, the star — born Kimberly Denise Jones — became the mistress and sidekick for rapper Notorious B.I.G.
By the age of 30 she was facing prison for lying to a federal grand jury to protect friends involved in a 2001 shootout outside a Manhattan radio station.
The rapper told the grand jury she did not notice two of her close friends at the scene of the shootout — her manager, Damion Butler, and Suif Jackson, known as “Gutta.” Both pleaded guilty to gun charges.
The gun battle happened outside WQHT-FM, known as Hot 97, when Lil’ Kim’s entourage crossed paths with a rival rap group, Capone-N-Noreaga.
While many rappers have served time in prison, Lil’ Kim was the first big-name female artist to do so.
After her release, the diminutive star continued making headlines with her outrageous outfits and love of plastic surgery.
She is now a mother to five-year-old girl Royal Reign and is set to release a new album, titled 9.
Chris Brown
Singer Chris Brown became the music world’s most hated man when he pleaded guilty to assaulting his former girlfriend, music superstar Rihanna.
Rihanna was left bruised and bleeding after Brown violently attacked her in 2009 following the Grammy Awards.
Brown was arrested following the incident, and was sentenced to community service and domestic violence counselling, plus a restraining order.
In a 2009 interview following the attack, Rihanna said she “fended him off with my feet”.
She added that Brown allegedly threatened to kill her, “to scare me”, and that “all I kept thinking was, ‘When is it going to stop?’” She characterised their relationship as “dangerous”:
Brown’s career was briefly derailed by the assault incident, with radio stations refusing to play his songs, but he has since had a string of hits. Controversially, he and Rihanna have since reconciled and recorded together.
In 2017, model Karrueche Tran — Brown’s former girlfriend — was granted a five-year restraining order against the singer, claiming he threatened to kill her.
Last January, he was arrested in Paris after a woman claimed he raped her in a hotel room, but was later released from custody without charges.
Jay-Z
Before rapper Jay-Z became a global superstar and built a billion-dollar net worth with his wife Beyonce, he pleaded guilty to second-degree felony assault with a deadly weapon.
The rapper, born Shawn Carter, reportedly stabbed Lance “Un” Riviera, a record producer, at an album release party.
Jay-Z has been open abut his troubled youth and time spent as a drug dealer growing up in Brooklyn’s Marcy housing projects,
But little information about the 1999 incident is available.
It was reported that the stabbing was a result of the alleged illegal distribution of Jay-Z’s album, Vol. 3 . . . Life and Times of S. Carter, prior to its official release.
Despite the limited details of the fracas, the father of three served three years of probation as a result.
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