This list was compiled with the aid of Cosmopolitan and ranker.com.
Wesley Snipes (New Jack City, Blade, Jungle Fever) was sentenced to three years in prison in 2008 for not filing taxes from 1994 to 2000. He began serving the sentence in 2010 and was released in 2013.
Robert Downey Jr.’s (Iron Man, The Avengers, Sherlock Holmes) drug addiction was even more well known in the 1990s than his prodigious acting talent. In 1999, the son of actor Robert Downey was sentenced to three years in prison for violating probation from a 1996 drug and weapons conviction. Downey was released on bail after serving one year.
Mark Wahlberg, who used to rap under the moniker Marky Mark, has been accused along with a laundry list of Caucasians of cultural appropriation in the first degree. The crime that got him thrown into prison, however, was an incident where he attacked a man with a metal stick in 1998 and was sentenced to two years. He got lucky and was let out after serving only 45 days of his sentence.
Hip-hop empress Lil Kim, aka Kimberly Denise Jones, was the very definition of a “ride-or-die chick.” The former Biggie Smalls protege refused to rat out friends during a 2001 shooting outside a Manhattan radio station. According to the courts, she perjured herself instead, and she was sentenced in 2005 to a year in prison and slapped with a $50,000 fine. Lil Kim would only have to serve 10 months.
In 1979, comedian and actor Tim Allen was caught drug trafficking in Michigan, according to the courts, and sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. He was released from prison in 1981.
In 1998, heavy metal band singer Tommy Lee was holed up for six months in prison for repeatedly beating up his then-wife, actress Pamela Anderson.
O.J. Simpson is arguably the most notorious and vilified celebrity criminal of all time. The legendary NFL star and actor was acquitted in the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in West Los Angeles. However, in 2008, Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison for an armed robbery and kidnapping in Las Vegas. He was paroled from prison in 2017.
Very rarely do celebrities actually commit murder. But in 2009, famed music hitmaker Phil Spector was found guilty in the shooting death of Lana Clarkson in his home. Spector is now serving 19 years to life for the 2003 slaying.
Former Fugees member and The Mis-Education of Lauryn Hill mastermind Lauryn Hill went to prison for three months for failing to pay taxes on $1.8 million in earnings.
Home fashion magnate and TV personality Martha Stewart was sentenced to five years in federal prison and five months of home confinement for getting caught lying to the feds about insider stock trading. She was released in 2005.
Many people would be surprised to learn that the great Paul McCartney of The Beatles went to jail. But back in the day, Sir Paul was convicted of marijuana possession and sentenced to nine days in jail. He was reportedly released in 1980, USA Today reports.
The newspaper also noted that rapper Fat Joe was convicted of tax evasion in 2013 and sentenced to four months in jail. He was released after serving three-fourths of his sentence.
