Celebrities Who Spoke Out About Their Crimes

Celebrities can get away with a lot of things, but they cannot escape the public eye. Many a high-profile celebrity has a criminal past, and while it is not uncommon to see celebrities speak about their crimes, their regret over their troubles with the law seems to vary. These celebrity crime quotes document the official statements, interview explanations, and reminiscent reflections of the stars on their criminal transgressions.

Many celebrities, like Charlie Sheen and R. Kelly, have become known for their run-ins with the law. Others, like Laura Bush and Tim Allen, keep their past under wraps. No matter what the situation, these celebrities have all talked about their crimes and their consequences.

Following her involvement in a February 2015 multi-car crash that resulted in the death of a woman on the Pacific Coast Highway, Caitlin Jenner told Matt Lauer what she could remember about the event, saying: "I remember it very little, I remember it happening and that's about it," but that "a tragedy like this, you'll never get over it. You just learn to live with it the best you possibly can." During the interview, Jenner revealed her greatest fear: being sent to a men's facility. "That is the worst case scenario. I will say the men's county jail, it is an enormous problem that they would put trans women in a men's county jail." Jenner could have faced a manslaughter charge and a possible year of jail time, but the state prosecutor declined to charge her.

Chris Brown was a teen heartthrob with a promising career, but that all changed following his 2009 assault on his then-girlfriend Rihanna. One night before both they were scheduled to perform at the Grammy Awards, Brown physically assaulted Rihanna, leaving her with a black eye and other injuries. In an upcoming documentary, Chris Brown speaks about the crime: "I felt like a f*cking monster. I was thinking about suicide, I wasn't sleeping, I barely ate..."

Since the attack, he hasn't exactly stayed out of trouble. In August 2016, a woman named Baylee Curran claimed that she was hanging out at Brown's house when he pointed a gun at her and threatened her. She fled and called the police from a neighbor's house. Officers arrived on the scene quickly but had to wait several hours to enter the property as they worked to obtain a search warrant. While the police were outside waiting on the warrant, Brown posted a series of videos from inside the house. In one, he said, "I'm innocent. F*ck everybody. I'm tired of hearing this sh*t." He was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.

It's no secret that Lindsay Lohan had a rough few years in the mid-2000s. She racked up multiple offenses that include drunk driving, drug possession, probation violation, and shoplifting. In a 2013 interview with Oprah, Lohan reflected on the motivations behind her erratic behavior, saying that " being in my addiction and having all the chaos around me that I was so comfortable with, I somewhere inside knew and kind of wanted to go to jail. That was subconsciously being put out there by my actions - or lack thereof.”

The ex-rapper and successful actor and entrepreneur Mark Wahlberg has a very troubled past. In 1988, he viciously assaulted two Vietnamese men after attempting to steal beer from one of them, hurling racist remarks like "slant-eyed g**ks" and ultimately, he believed, blinding the second victim, Johnny Trinh. In 2014, Wahlberg petitioned to have the racial assault pardoned, saying in an official statement that though "from later accounts of the incident, it is my understanding that I may have caused serious injuries," he has sufficiently "dedicated myself to being a better role model and citizen so that I can be a role model to my children and others."

The petition is still being considered, but Wahlberg has since learned that he didn't actually blind Trinh; Trinh lost his eye in the Vietnam War. Wahlberg said, "Imagine the weight lifted off of my shoulders when this guy came out and said that he forgave me and that I wasn't responsible for his eye injury - that it was something that happened in 1975. That's why I was tried as an adult...Hopefully I've done enough to be given a second chance and if not, it doesn't change how much work I'm going to put into what I'm doing."

Famed businesswoman and crafty homemaker Martha Stewart served five months in federal prison following a highly publicized insider trading charge. Essentially, Stewart was convicted of trading stocks based on knowledge not available to the public, but after her sentencing, Stewart told Barbara Walters that the charge was "a direct result of something that was a personal matter. Not a company matter…I didn't go and cheat the little people. I just didn't do that. We're all little people." However, she also added, "Many, many people have suffered [because of the charges against me]. People [at my company] have lost jobs. I am very saddened and very, very sorry for that."

Mel Gibson's career never really recovered from his 2006 drunk driving arrest and subsequent hateful tirade. Gibson had a history of alcohol problems, but everything came to a head when he was pulled over in Los Angeles and drunkenly refused to cooperate with the policeman. He went on to say: “F*cking Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Gibson was extremely apologetic about the incident at the time, but now he would like to put the whole thing behind him. In a 2014 interview, Gibson said, “All the necessary mea culpas have been made copious times, so for this question to keep coming up, it's kind of like...I'm sorry they feel that way, but I've done what I need to do."

R. Kelly is one of the most successful hip-hop artists of our time, but he is also one of the most scandalous. Rumors of his inappropriate relationships with minors have consistently circulated throughout the years, but the most famous accusation came in 2002, when a sex tape showed a man having sex with an underage girl, then urinating in her mouth. That man was allegedly identified as R. Kelly. Kelly was subsequently charged with child pornography. He was found not guilty in 2008, likely because the young girl's identity and age could not be confirmed.

In an interview with GQ, Kelly insisted that "when a person is found not guilty, they're found not guilty. And it doesn't matter if it's a murder case, it doesn't matter what case it is, when they're found not guilty, they're not guilty. And I think that a lot of haters out there wanted to see me go down.” When pressed about whether or not it is truly him in the video, Kelly only said: "Because of my lawyers, to this day I cannot have those kind [sic] of conversations. Being advised by my lawyers in this."

Though Tim Allen later went on to become a wildly successful comedian and actor, at one point he thought he would spend life in prison. In 1978, Allen was arrested at Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport for possession of over 650 grams of cocaine. Drug trafficking in such large quantities can carry a life sentence, but Allen pled guilty and revealed the names of fellow dealers in exchange for a reduced sentence of three to seven years.

He was released from prison in 1981 and believes that this experience completely changed his life: "I was put in a holding cell with twenty other guys - we had to crap in the same crapper in the middle of the room - and I just told myself, I can't do this for seven and a half years. I want to kill myself." He then explained that he couldn't get the comic image of a failed suicide attempt out of his head, and that "the comic in me showed up, the purest form, and saved my life."

Way back in 2007 during the very first season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Khloé Kardashian was arrested for drunk driving after attempting to drive home after a night clubbing in West Hollywood. Khloé was sentenced to community service, and described the service experience on The Tyra Banks Show: "I have to go to the hospital and see injured people who were either a drunk driver themselves or were hurt by someone." Regarding the crime itself, she said that "what I could have done is just unthinkable. I will never, ever do that again."

As far as illegal activity goes, this is pretty weird. Justin Bieber faced criticism when his pet monkey was confiscated at a customs check in a German airport in 2013. But it wasn't the fact the monkey was confiscated that got people upset; it was that he just left it there. Bieber failed to reclaim the monkey, who was named OG Mally, and the German government demanded $8,000 in fees for the trouble of relocating OG Mally to a zoo.

In a 2016 interview, Justin explained, “In Germany, that monkey’s endangered or something…but I had the papers. I even had it written out that he was a circus monkey and he could travel and all that shit. I had all the right papers. Things get twisted.” Despite this, he admits that he should have seen it coming: "“Honestly, everyone told me not to bring the monkey. Everybody.”