Weekend Celebrity Crime Round-Up: Lindsay Lohan, Russell Brand, and Randy Quaid terrorize a trembling nation
From out of the shadows of Hollywood’s grimy back-alleys, celebrities continue to wage war against human decency, holding the populace hostage with their wanton lawlessness. We ended the week cringing in fear at the beachfront brutality of Adam Lambert, and bearing witness to the way a Waffle House beat down can be so easily whitewashed by a $40,000 bankroll; we begin this week with three different tales of celebrity terror from our ever-expanding rogues’ gallery of the rich and famous. As long as its most famous citizens continue to roam them, will our city’s streets ever be safe???
First up: Lindsay Lohan spent Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, admitting that she failed her most recent drug test, which really calls into question the efficacy the entire prison system. Like so many other career criminals, the 14 days (of a 90-day sentence) she spent in jail eating Twizzlers and working on songs only served to harden her, and the 23 days she spent in a rehab facility now seem cursory and meaningless, and not at all the intense period of self-reflection and personal inventory-taking we all expected. Once she’s called before the judge again, Lohan could face another 30 days in jail, a consequence she seems to be taking in stride, reminding everyone that she is “a work in progress”—and after all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor did Rome stop blowing fat rails in the two years after its acting career began a tailspin. Unfortunately, this puts Lohan’s planned comeback playing porn star Linda Lovelace in jeopardy, as Inferno director Matthew Wilder is now worried that the film’s financers may back out. (But then, in keeping with Wilder’s Last Temptation Of Christ-quoting statement during Lohan’s original sentencing, let us remember that Jesus lost all his financing too, but woe to the insurers who forsook him whence the glorious day of reckoning arrives.)
Woe as well to the photographers who dare to approach Katy Perry, as the paparazzo who approached Perry and her fiancé Russell Brand late Friday afternoon at LAX found out. The fragile peace accord between stars and photographers, already cracked by Lambert’s beach rampage, took another symbolic blow to the face as Brand slapped a photographer whom Perry later claimed was trying to “put a lens up my skirt,” which is a special sanctified place that only her husband-to-be, certain music video directors, and a select handful of magazines are allowed to go. Of course, the footage doesn’t really bear that out: Brand just sort of shoves and slaps at the first guy within reach. Fortunately his reckless violence against these valiant public servants just angling for a piece of the American dream with their photos of Katy Perry hopefully looking sort-of bloated at the airport did not go unchecked, and Brand was then taken into police custody after the photographer made a brave citizen’s arrest, which people can actually do in real life, apparently. Brand now faces battery charges, which could lead to up to six months to a year in jail. But will that be enough?!
Finally, actor Randy Quaid and his wife Evi were arrested over the weekend for allegedly squatting in a property they had previously owned, which they had sold in 2007, and apparently just forgot about, or decided to ignore the standard “no givesies backsies” clause in the contract. The new owner discovered them hiding out in the guest house and alerted police, who then arrested them on charges of unlawful entry and felony residential burglary, while a contractor also pointed out more than $5,000 worth of damage he said the Quaids had done to the house (yes, yes… that may or may not have included a dangerously full shitter). Evi was also charged with resisting arrest. It’s just the latest criminal activity the Quaids have been accused of, as last year they were charged with felony counts of defrauding two resorts by using invalid credit cards (charges were later dismissed). The Quaids are still being held with bail set at $50,000 each, keeping them off the streets and away from their old grifters’ tricks. But for how long??!
Meanwhile, Heather Locklear remains at large. Remember, if you see any celebrities, consider them dangerous.