Celebrity mugshots: 42 best, funniest famous arrest photos

Actress and ‘It Girl’ Mischa Barton was arrested for drink driving and not having a licence in Los Angeles in December 2007 and booked at the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station. Then 21, the star of The O.C. accepted a plea deal which imposed three years’ probation, alcohol education classes and a fine. Picture: Supplied

Jane Fonda was arrested in November 1970 at an airport in Cleveland, Ohio, after wrongly being suspected of smuggling illegal drugs and a scuffle with law enforcement. While the then 32-year-old actress and activist had a large quantity of pills in her possession, charges were dropped after it was found that some were vitamins and others legally prescribed. Picture: Supplied

“I never was speeding; I never was drag racing,” said singer Justin Bieber of his 2014 Miami arrest on suspicion of drink driving and drag racing in his yellow Lamborghini. The pop star copped to misdemeanour careless driving and resisting arrest without violence, agreeing to complete an anger management course, make a donation to charity and pay a fine. Picture: Supplied

They were very different times in 1938 when a young Frank Sinatra was arrested for “seduction” after allegedly having sex with a woman “of good repute” but not following through on promises to marry her. When it emerged the woman was already married, police tried again with an adultery case against the singer, but that charge too was eventually dropped. Picture: Getty

Ozzy Osbourne was, according to police, “staggering drunk” when he was arrested in Memphis in 1984 for public intoxication, but he was allowed to dry out and released without charge. Speaking of his battle to get sober in 2018, he recalled: “At one point, I never ever imagined going a day (without alcohol). I was a raging alcoholic.” Picture: Supplied

Jimi Hendrix did not dispute the finding of heroin and hashish in his luggage when he was arrested at Toronto airport in May 1969, but insisted he was unaware of their presence. At trial in December that year, the jury accepted a fan could have slipped the drugs into his bags without his knowledge and acquitted him. Hendrix said the verdict was “the best Christmas present I ever had”. Picture: Supplied

This 1994 mugshot was taken after a pistol was found in actor Christian Slater’s luggage at New York’s JFK Airport. He received community service on that occasion, but three years later was sentenced to 90 days in prison for assault after a drug and alcohol binge in LA. “It was humiliating on a grand scale,” he said. “The thing I’m sad about is that there were people there who got caught up with me hitting bottom.” Picture: Supplied

Actress Reese Witherspoon played the celebrity card when her husband was stopped on suspicion of drink-driving in 2013, telling a state trooper: “Do you know my name? You’re about to find out who I am.” The Oscar winner was charged with disorderly conduct and later fined after refusing to stay in the car while husband James Toth was given a field sobriety test in Atlanta. She later said she was “deeply embarrassed”. Picture: AP

Lindsay Lohan was facing 90 days in jail for breaching probation relating to a 2007 driving under the influence conviction when she was snapped at the Lynwood correctional facility in Los Angeles in 2010. But no sooner had she donned jail garb and been put in a nine-square-metre cell, than Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said the actress's sentence would be reduced to just 14 days. Picture: AFP

Former child star Gary Coleman was booked in Utah in January 2010 after being arrested on a warrant for failing to appear in court. The 41-year-old Diff’rent Strokes actor was released after posting bail, and blamed a stay in hospital for missing the court date. “I don’t like jail, I don’t ever want to see it again,” he added. Coleman died in May the same year of natural causes after a fall. Picture: AP

Famed TV host Larry King was working on Miami radio and TV when he was arrested in December 1971 and charged with grand larceny. While a judge threw out the larceny charge because the statute of limitations had run out, King pleaded no contest to one count of passing bad cheques. Picture: Supplied

Michael Jackson was photographed by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's office following his November 2003 arrest for child molestation. The then 45-year-old King of Pop was released after posting $US3 million bail and was acquitted at trial in 2005. Picture: Supplied

Hollywood star Steve McQueen was arrested for drink driving in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1972, but left town after posting bail. The so-called King of Cool, whose films included The Thomas Crown Affair, The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape, was later convicted in absentia. Picture: Supplied

Comedian Bill Cosby’s mugshot was released after his 2018 sentencing for sexual assault. The TV star was found guilty on three counts of aggravated indecent assault over a 2004 attack on a woman at his Pennsylvania home and jailed for at least three years. Picture: Supplied

A few years before recording best-selling albums inside Folsom and San Quentin prisons, singer Johnny Cash had his own brush with the law. He was arrested in 1965 at El Paso International Airport with hundreds of pills in his bags after a trip to Juarez, Mexico. The Ring of Fire singer spent a night in county jail and later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour, receiving a fine and suspended sentence. Picture: Supplied

Troubled actress Heather Locklear was arrested in June 2018, accused of fighting with emergency staff who had been called to a disturbance at her home. It was the second such alleged incident in a year, with the Dynasty and Melrose Place star reportedly entering a treatment facility shortly after. It was reported in May this year that she was back in rehab. Picture: Supplied

Australian actor Matthew Newton was arrested twice in Miami, Florida in April 2012 — accused firstly of trespass and resisting officers and secondly of an attack on a hotel receptionist. He walked free, without conviction, after prosecutors agreed to divert him from the criminal system, but needed to provide a written apology and pay restitution to the clerk and complete community service. Picture: Supplied

Actor Mickey Rourke was arrested for drink-driving on a Vespa by Miami Beach police in 2007. He had “bloodshot, watery eyes, slurred speech and a strong odour of an alcoholic beverage,” according to the US arrest report, though the actor told police: “I’m not drunk. I didn’t even drink that much.” He later pleaded guilty to a lesser offence of reckless driving, and was placed on probation. Picture: Supplied

In December 1999, rapper Jay-Z was arrested for stabbing a record producer at the Kit Kat Club in New York. He pleaded not guilty to first-degree assault, but later admitted to a lesser assault charge in return for three years’ probation. Picture: Getty

Arrested with friends for marijuana possession in Rochester, New York, music legend David Bowie posed in 1976 for what has been described as the coolest mugshot of all time. Looking dapper in his three-piece suit, he insisted he was innocent but had no complaint about his treatment, saying the police acted “like gentlemen” and were “very courteous.” Charges were later dismissed. Picture: Getty

Brian Hugh Warner — aka Marilyn Manson — was charged with criminal sexual conduct after gyrating in a G-string against a security guard who was working at the front of the stage during a 2001 concert in Detroit. He pleaded no contest to a lesser charges, copping a fine, and reached a confidential settlement with the guard in a civil case. Picture: Getty

Microsoft boss Bill Gates didn’t look too worried after being arrested on a traffic matter in 1977 and full details of the offence and any punishment are unclear. But in a 2016 interview, Gates admitted his early love of fast cars, saying that as he made money: “I bought one thing that was a tiny bit of a splurge. My first car that I owned was a Porsche 911. It was used, but it was an incredible car and that was actually when I was down in Albuquerque. And sometimes when I would want to think at night, I’d just go out and drive around at high speed and fortunately I didn’t kill myself doing that.” Picture: Getty

Snoop Dogg turned himself in to authorities in November 2006, four days after charges were laid for possession of a deadly weapon. That charge related to a collapsible baton found in his luggage at California’s John Wayne Airport in September that year, but the rapper — real name Calvin Broadus — was also arrested at Bob Hope airport in October over gun and drug possession. Then later in November, he faced a third arrest in three months, again over a firearm and drugs, as he left The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. He was given probation and community service. Picture: Supplied

Reality TV star Nicole Richie served just 82 minutes of a four-day sentence for driving under the influence of drugs in August 2007, and by the time she’d posed for this booking photo and had fingerprints taken, she never saw a cell. The quick release from LA County Jail was in line with policies to prevent prison overcrowding. “She was really treated like any other inmate,” said her lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley. Picture: AP

In 2008, Ryan O’Neal was arrested with his then 23-year-old son on a methamphetamine possession charge after a probation check at their Malibu home relating to an earlier case involving Redmond. The actor pleaded guilty a few months later and completed an 18-month drug awareness program to have charge erased from his record. Picture: Supplied

Al Pacino was just 20 when he posed for this mugshot in 1961. The future star of The Godfather, Scarface and Scent of a Woman was arrested with friends in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and charged with possession of a concealed weapon after a gun was found in their car. They reportedly spent three days in jail, with Pacino telling police the weapon was a prop. Picture: AP

London’s Metropolitan Police Service released this image of disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris, taken after his 2013 arrest, when he was found guilty the following year of indecent assaults against four teenage girls between 1968 and 1986. The Australian served three years in jail before being released on licence in May 2017. Picture: AFP

Robert Downey Jr was booked by police in Culver City, California, for being under the influence of a controlled substance in April 2001, the last in a series of drug-related arrests that threatened to destroy his acting career. Instead, he finally made a go of rehab, later saying, “I reached out for help, and I ran with it”, and enjoyed a stunning comeback. Picture: AFP

Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin was charged with possession of marijuana and having a controlled substance without a prescription after a car he was a passenger in was stopped for speeding in Oklahoma City in 2004. He later pleaded guilty and was given one-year deferred sentences on each charge. It was his second time in a courtroom in a month, having testified a few weeks earlier for Michael Jackson’s defence. Picture: AP

“My hair wild, my expression unsettling, looking like an asylum inmate out for a lark,” is how former People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” Nick Nolte described this 2002 photo released by the California Highway Patrol. The actor, who was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, voluntarily checked into a substance abuse and psychiatric centre and was given three years’ probation when the matter went to court. Picture: AP

“What’s wrong with beating on your drums in your birthday suit?” quipped actor Matthew McConaughey, reflecting on his 1999 arrest in Austin, Texas. Police called to a disturbance at his home found the star dancing naked and playing the bongos and arrested him on suspicion of marijuana possession and for resisting arrest. However those charges were dropped and he ended up paying only a small fine for disturbing the peace. Picture: AP

Shia LaBeouf has had a few run-ins with the law, but this mugshot was taken in 2015 after he was arrested for public intoxication in Austin, Texas. After another incident in Georgia two years later, the actor apologised on social media, saying he was trying to get sober, and writing: “My outright disrespect for authority is problematic to say the least, and completely destructive to say the worst.” Picture: Getty

After music producer Phil Spector was found guilty in 2009 of the murder of actress Lana Clarkson at his Californian home, the Los Angeles sheriff’s department released this booking photo of the then 69-year-old. While Spector’s defence had tried to suggest Clarkson shot herself, the prosecution said he had a history of threatening women. “When he’s ignited, he always does the same thing — he grabs a gun,” the court heard. Picture: AFP

A sheepish Hugh Grant posed for LA police after being arrested for lewd conduct with prostitute Divine Brown on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood in 1995, a week before his film Nine Months came out. He told TV host Jay Leno that same year: “You know in life what’s a good thing to do and a bad thing to do. I did a bad thing.” Picture: Supplied

Then waitress Nicki Minaj was arrested by New York police in 2003 accused of possession of a weapon with intent to use. The rapper’s mugshot featured in a montage of celebrity booking photos used by Jay Z in his On The Run II Tour with wife Beyonce, with Minaj commenting on Instagram: “When Jay asks for your mug shot for his tour backdrop.” Picture: Getty

Singer Chris Brown has had a string of run-ins with the law — most notably for his 2009 assault on then-girlfriend Rihanna — but this particular mugshot is just a year old, from an arrest in West Palm Beach, Florida. Brown was charged with battery for allegedly punching a photographer at a Tampa club in 2017, a case that is still before the courts. Picture: Getty

Mel Gibson’s 2006 drink-driving arrest became notorious for the anti-Semitic remarks he made to the Malibu police who took him in. The Australian publicly apologised, saying he “said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable”. In 2009, Gibson’s criminal record over the incident was wiped clean by a judge, but two years later he pleaded guilty to misdemeanour battery against ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. Picture: AFP

Gossip Girl actor Chace Crawford was charged with marijuana possession in Plano, Texas, in 2010, but struck a plea deal that would see his record wiped clean if he stayed out of trouble for a year and completed community service. Having done so, he saw the charges formally dismissed in 2011. Picture: AP

“I was young, man! I was in f---ing Vegas. I wasn’t thinking,” singer Bruno Mars told GQ magazine in 2013 of his 2010 arrest for cocaine possession. He pleaded guilty, but was able to have his record wiped after community service and drug counselling. The lesson he learned after working hard for his success: “It can all be taken away.” Picture: Getty

Actor Keanu Reeves’ mugshot was taken in 1993 after he was reportedly stopped for driving erratically and quickly owned up to being under the influence, avoiding formal charges. Picture: Supplied

Home Improvement sitcom star Tim Allen was jailed for drug trafficking in the late 1970s after being arrested at an airport in Michigan with cocaine. “It put me in a position of great humility, and I was able to make amends to friends and family and refocus my life on setting and achieving goals,” he later said of the more than two years behind bars. Picture: Supplied

Actor Kiefer Sutherland was “polite and humble”, according to authorities, as he was booked into Glendale City Jail in California to serve 48 days for driving under the influence. On his release in January 2008, a jail spokesman said he had been given laundry duty and “never gave us any problems, never complained about anything”. Sutherland later said he’d made a serious mistake and, “jail is exactly as advertised”. Picture: Supplied

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From Sinatra to Bill Gates: 42 must-see celebrity mugshots