16 Respected Celebrities Who Committed Heinous Crimes

You may have forgotten about these ten respected celebrities who committed heinous crimes. These A-list stars have some pretty unforgettable pasts and shocking convictions. Some crimes on this list are more violent than others, but they are nonetheless surprising. Some of these celebs are still even considered felons today. Read through and let us know in the comments section below which incident is the most startling.

1. Christian Slater

The Adderall Diaries actor has a laundry list of convictions. In 1989, Slater was arrested for drunk driving and assault for which he served ten days in jail. Then in 1994, he attempted to board a commercial plane with a loaded gun in his luggage and received community service. Slater’s third offense occurred in 1997 when he was convicted of assaulting his then-girlfriend, Michelle Jonas, and a police officer while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Slater spent over 100 days in a rehabilitation facility while out on bail and was subsequently sentenced to a three-month term in jail followed by three months in a residential rehab center. On May 24, 2005 Slater was arrested again in Manhattan, after allegedly sexually harassing a woman on the street. Slater was charged with third degree sexual abuse and was held at the 19th precinct in Manhattan. The charges were later dropped on the condition that Slater keep out of trouble for six months.

2. Mike Tyson

The world-renowned boxer was arrested in 1991 for the rape of 18-year-old Desiree Washington in Indianapolis. Washington testified that after she received a phone call from Tyson inviting her to a party, he began to make sexual advances toward her in his limo. According to Washington, when the pair reached Tyson’s hotel room, he pinned her down and raped her despite her pleas for him to stop. Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison, followed by four years probation, of which he only served three.

3. Charlie Sheen

Sheen is no stranger to controversy, so it’s no surprise that he appears on this list of celebrities who’ve committed horrible crimes. On Christmas morning 2009, the Two and a Half Men star was arrested in Aspen, Colorado for assaulting his third wife, Brooke Mueller. Sheen plead guilty to misdemeanor assault in August 2010. Mueller allegedly told police that Sheen had pinned her on the bed and held a knife to her throat. Later, an arrest warrant affidavit released described Sheen as “straddling her on a bed with one hand grasping her neck and the other holding the knife.” She said Sheen told her, “You better be in fear. If you tell anybody, I’ll kill you.” Sheen denied the claims that he had threatened and choked his wife saying, “we had slapped each other on the arms” and “I had snapped two pairs of her eyeglasses in front of her.” Sheen was eventually sentenced to 30 days in a drug rehabilitation center, 30 days probation, and 36 hours of anger management.

4. Tim Allen

Before the Last Man Standing star got into acting, he was involved with drugs. Tim Allen Dick (his full real name) was arrested for drug trafficking on October 2, 1978, in the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport. Allen was caught with over 650 grams of cocaine in his possession. He plead guilty to drug trafficking and provided the names of other dealers in exchange for a sentence of three to seven years rather than a possible life imprisonment. Allen was paroled in 1981, after serving two years and four months in the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota.

5. Lil’ Kim

In 2005, rapper Lil’ Kim was arrested for conspiracy and perjury after lying to a grand jury about her friend’s whereabouts during a 2001 shooting outside of a Manhattan radio station. Lil’ Kim attempted to avoid snitching on her colleagues, but lying to a grand jury is NOT cool. She was sentenced to a year in prison for this incident. She was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine. Kim got off easy compared to the 20 year maximum sentence she could have received.

6. Jay-Z

In December 1999, while Jay Z was partying at Manhattan’s Kit Kat Klub, his associates allegedly caused a distraction to allow an opportunity for the rapper to stab record executive, Lance Rivera. Jay-Z had come to believe that Rivera was responsible for the bootlegging of Vol 3…Life and Time Of S. Carter. Jay reportedly stabbed Rivera in the stomach with a five inch blade. Jay surrendered to police the following evening and was placed under arrest, although he was soon released on $50,000 bail. When he was indicted in Manhattan Criminal Court in late January 2000, Jay pleaded not guilty. He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and accepted a three-year probation sentence. Jay Z later addressed the incident in his 2010 book Decoded:

“One night I went to Q-Tip’s solo album release party and at some point in the night, I ran into the guy everyone’s been telling me is behind the bootleg. So I approached him. When I told him what I suspected, to my surprise, he got real loud with me right there in the middle of the club. It was strange. We separated and I went over to the bar. I was sitting there like, “No the f*ck this n*gga did not…..” I was talking to people, but I was really talking to myself out loud, just in a state of shock. Before I even realized what I was doing, I headed back over to him, but this time I was blacking out with anger. The next thing I knew, all hell had broken loose in the club. That night the guy went straight to the police and I was indicted…There was no reason to put my life on the line, and the lives of everyone who depends on me, because of a momentary loss of control….. I vowed to never allow myself to be in a situation like that again.”

7. Ozzy Osbourne

The “Prince of Darkness'” convictions aren’t as horrible as they are ridiculous. In 1982, while wearing one of his future wife Sharon’s dresses, Osbourne was caught drunkenly urinating on an cenotaph, erected in honor of those who died at the Alamo in Texas. He was arrested and subsequently banned from the city of San Antonio for 10 years. In May 1984, Osbourne was arrested in Memphis, Tennessee, again for public intoxication while on tour with Mötley Crüe. The 1984 tour is remembered as one of the “craziest drug and alcohol-fueled tours in the history of rock and roll.”

8. Wesley Snipes

The 53-year-old Blade actor was convicted of tax fraud in 2006. Snipes was charged with one count of conspiring to defraud the United States and one count of knowingly making or aiding and abetting the making of a false and fraudulent claim for payment against the United States. Snipes was also charged with six counts of willfully failing to file federal income tax returns by their filing dates. Snipes had allegedly made about $23 million by falsifying his taxes before being caught. The actor faced heavy fines and a three-year prison sentence. Snipes served from December 2010 until July 2013.

9. R. Kelly

After a July 1996 brawl at a Louisiana health club involving Kelly and his entourage, the R&B singer was placed on a year’s unsupervised probation after being found guilty of battery. One of the victims in the fight needed 110 facial stitches! The 48-year-old record producer has also had more than one run-in with underage girls. In 1996, R. Kelly was sued by then 20 year-old Tiffany Hawkins for having sexual relations with her when she was 15 and he was 24. The claim was for $10 million but the lawsuit was reportedly settled out of court for $250,000. In June 2002, Kelly was indicted in Chicago on 21 counts of child pornography after the Chicago Sun-Times found a video reportedly depicting Kelly engaging in sex with and urinating on an underage girl. After a search of his Florida home, officers recovered twelve images of an alleged underage girl (the same girl from the sex tape) on a digital camera. The charges of child pornography were dropped due to a lack of probable cause for the search warrants.

10. Mark Wahlberg

Throughout his youth, Wahlberg was in trouble 20–25 times with the Boston Police Department. At 13 years old, Wahlberg had already become addicted to cocaine, among other drugs. By 15, he had a civil action filed against him for harassing black children, and at 16, he was arrested for brutally assaulting two Vietnamese men in racially motivated attacks. Wahlberg approached a middle-aged Vietnamese man named Thanh Lam on the street and, using a large wooden stick, knocked him unconscious while calling him “VIETNAM F*CKING SHIT.” That same day Wahlberg also attacked a second Vietnamese man named Hoa “Johnny” Trinh, brutally beating him in the face. For these two incidents, Wahlberg was charged with attempted murder, plead guilty to assault and was sentenced to two years in Suffolk County Deer Island House of Correction. He ultimately only served 45 days of his sentence, but carries a permanent felony record. In another incident, the 21-year-old Wahlberg fractured the jaw of a neighbor in an unprovoked attack. Wahlberg has since apologized for his violent behavior saying, “I did a lot of things that I regret, and I have certainly paid for my mistakes.”

11. Will Smith

The Focus actor was involved in a horrific incident at the age of 20. Smith and a group of his friends assaulted a man so brutally, that the victim was almost left blind following the 1989 attack. The charges against the Fresh Prince included aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person, however they were all eventually dismissed. Will did spend one night in a West Philadelphia jail and described it as the “worst night of his life.”

12. Danny Trejo

The 71-year-old Mexican-American actor is best known for his portrayal of hyper-masculine characters. He’s starred in a number of Hollywood films including Heat, Con Air, Anaconda and Desperado. Trejo is perhaps most recognized as the character Machete and unfortunately back in the 1960s Trejo’s real life persona wasn’t much different from the thuggish on-screen roles he played. Trejo was in and out of prison for over ten years in California for an assortment of drug, murder and robbery charges.

13. Andre the Giant

The late professional wrestler and actor is best remembered for his role of Fezzik, the giant in 1987’s The Princess Bride. The WWF Hall of Famer most famously feuded with Hulk Hogan during the late 80’s, culminating at WrestleMania III when Hogan body slammed the 520 lb giant. In 1989, Andre was arrested by the Linn County, Iowa, sheriff and charged with assault after he allegedly violently attacked a local television cameraman. The “8th Wonder of the World” as he was often referred to, passed away in 1993 from congestive heart failure.

14. OJ Simpson

The former Buffalo Bills running back was at the center of one of the most controversial and internationally publicized criminal trials of the 21st century, after being charged with the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown and her friend, Ron Goldman. Although, Simpson was acquitted on all charges in 1994, he found himself in trouble with the law again in 2008. The athlete turned actor was charged with armed robbery and kidnapping, resulting in 33 years at Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada with a minimum of nine years without parole.

15. Shelley Malil

The 40-Year-Old Virgin star was arrested in 2008 for stabbing his ex-girlfriend 23 times, after he caught her with another man. In 2010, the Indian-born actor was convicted of attempted premeditated murder and assault with a deadly weapon on a former girlfriend. Luckily, his girlfriend, Kendra Beebe, survived the brutal attack. Malil is currently serving a life term at Ironwood State Prison in southern California, with the possibility of parole after twelve years.

16. Gary Dourdan

Dourdan is best known for his portrayal of Warrick Brown on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation from 2000-2008. Over the years Dourdan has had a few run-ins with the law, primarily regarding his drug use, but in 2011 he was arrested for violently beating his then-girlfriend. The 49-year-old was charged with felony battery after allegedly breaking his girlfriend’s nose. He was placed on five years probation and ordered to attend 52 weeks of domestic violence counselling. Dourdan filed for bankruptcy in August 2012 and again in January 2015.