Thursday

Shocking artist arrests


15 May 2012
by Poppy Reid

A celebrity arrest can usually go one of two ways: it can either suspend an artist’s career indefinitely, rendering them unfit as role models for their target demographic and on occasion stop them from touring overseas, or it can mark them in history as the mighty musician who stuck it to the man and was awarded a momentous mug shot for the adoring fans to pour over.
The below fall into neither of these categories. Rather, it’s a list of arrest subjects we think should be nominated for a Darwin Award.

The Game
In 2005 he wasn’t arrested for homophobic slander, nor was he charged for spitting on fans, or sexual harassment, or even defamation against police officers. The US rapper was detained for wearing a Halloween mask and signing autographs at a shopping centre.
In an interview with WFMY News he said: Signing a little girl’s autograph got me arrested… They thought I was Rodney King, man. It was a case of mistaken identity. It’s unfair, man. Their behaviour’s unfair." – Don’t worry, you’re still king of the ‘unfairness awards,’ hands down.

George Michael
His arrest in 1998 after he was caught masturbating in a public toilet has hung over the fancy footed singer’s head since his fluoro-donning days in Wham! The repercussions (a $810 fine and 80 hours of community service) seem like a slap on the wrist compared to the erectile and prison jokes that will forever surround him.

Foxy Brown
It has to be disclaimed that TMN do not, in any way condone violence but when a female rapper turns herself in after attacking her neighbour with a Blackberry mobile - while on probation for numerous other rage-related incidents - in 2007, we had to make an exception.

James Brown
When someone has the audacity to use your designated toilet in your office building, try and refrain from doing a James Brown, circa 1988.
The late soul-singing legend bombarded an insurance seminar next door to his office, carrying a shotgun. Police were of course, alerted which sparked a high-speed chase over the South Carolina Interstate. After over 20 bullets were shot into Brown’s tyres and he finally surrendered whilst singing Georgia On My Mind.

Ozzy Osbourne
The music industry would be a dull and healthy place without larrikins like Ozzy Osbourne. A colourful career painted with overdoses and inaudible court testimonies hadn’t even peaked in 1982 when the Black Sabbath frontman ‘defiled a national monument’ in Texas.
Urinating on the Cenotaph tomb (dedicated to the fallen) in front of the Alamo is apparently one of Osbourne’s biggest regrets and the reason why he later donated ten thousand dollars to its caretakers.

DMX
Two weeks after multi-Platinum-selling rapper, DMX premiered his film Never Die Alone in 2004, he took his method acting one step further and decided to impersonate an FBI agent with friend Jackie Hudgins at New York’s Kennedy airport.
Needless to say, DMX’s acting proved fruitless so he drove his Ford (complete with lights and sirens) through a security gate. He was charged with criminal impersonation and crack cocaine possession.
Rick Allen of Def Leppard
The stickman for ‘80s iconic band Def Leppard, lost his left arm in a car accident in 1984. Proving a limb loss wouldn’t hold him back from rock stardom Allen is still the drummer for Def Leppard whose recent tour saw them head Down Under in October last year. But Allen’s most unforgivable display of his inferiority complex happened in 1995 when he was arrested for beating his wife with his remaining arm at an LA airport.
He was put on probation and forced to attend AA and domestic violence counselling meetings and charged with spousal abuse. But to us he seems pretty armless…

Wiz Khalifa
The fact US rapper Wiz Khalifa was arrested for possession and trafficking of marijuana in November 2010 is neither surprising or amusing; it’s his desire to Tweet: "Waken...baken...wrist still achin. thnx for tha love and support… Man, jail sux," hours after posting the $300,000 bail, that caught our attention.

Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney
Never the type to break stereotype, country music stars Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney were arrested in 2000 for mounting a police officers horse, riding off (into the sunset we expect) and attacking the deputy sheriff who owned the beast. Oh, and the incident happened at the George Strait Country Music Festival.

Marilyn Manson
Years of parading his androgyny and sexual ambiguity can be opitimised in one event in July 2001. According to security guard Joshua Keasler, the shock rocker spat on him at a concert in Michigan, "proceeded to gyrate his hips, pressing his genitals" in a masturbatory fashion against his head and ultimately taking Keasler’s into a headlock between his thighs.

Prince
The Purple One isn’t just a manic musical genius with thirty-five albums, countless #1 hits and a plethora of female conquests; he’s also the type to steal an aeroplane megaphone and hide it in his friend’s carry-on.
The playful prank in 1980 didn’t impress a humourless passenger who alerted the hostess and had Prince arrested in Mississippi. He was taken to the local jail where he proceeded to pose for pictures and sign autographs for the officers.

Frank Sinatra
On November 17, 1938, Mickey Blue Eyes was just 23-years-old when he was as arrested in Bergen County, New Jersey and charged for adultery. The FBI report says it all really:
"On the second and ninth days of November 1938 at the Borough of Lodi under the promise of marriage" Sinatra "did then and there have sexual intercourse with the said complainant, who was then and there a single female of good repute." The charge stated, this was "contrary and in violation of the revised statute of 1937."
All charges were then dismissed when it was determined the woman in question was in fact, married.

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