'90s Stars You Forgot Went To Prison

The 1990s was a particularly fruitful era of pop culture, with those who made films, TV shows, and music churning out the best work of their lives, if not of all time. That period gave the world numerous icons, some of which remain vital artists today — a combination of their stellar works and an instantly entrenched fascination by the public made them into life-long celebrities. Because of the edge-smoothing effects of nostalgia and the shared need to remember and celebrate the positive, we may not register the darker moments in the lives of our beloved entertainers. Many of the most notable stars of the 1990s allegedly committed crimes of very levels of heinousness, and through due process, were convicted and sent to prison for a little while.

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Because those stars have worked hard to rehabilitate their images and leave scandals, bad choices, and controversies in the past, it’s easy to forget that some of the biggest ’90s names, our most adored luminaries of film, television, and music, did hard time in prison.

In late 1994, Allen all at once starred in the No. 1 movie at the box office, starred in the No. 1 show on television, and boasted the best-selling book in the U.S., his comic essay collection “Don’t Stand Too Close to a Naked Man.” A successful stand-up comedian in the 1980s, Allen parlayed his act centered around how men are essentially grunting asocial apes into the sitcom “Home Improvement.” Allen played a constantly befuddled father and husband, a character so relatable that it launched the comic’s film career, which included roles in blockbusters like three “The Santa Clause” movies and multiple “Toy Story” installments.

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“Home Improvement” was instantly popular upon its debut in 1991, and it hit the air exactly 10 years after Allen was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone, Minnesota. Back in 1978, Allen placed more than 650 grams (or 1.4 pounds) of cocaine in his bags when he tried to travel through Michigan’s Kalamazoo-Battle Creek International Airport. Arrested and facing the possibility of life in prison if convicted on a charge of intent to distribute the cocaine, Allen negotiated a deal with prosecutors. He gave authorities the names of his superiors in his drug trafficking ring. In return, he agreed to enter a guilty plea and received a sentence of three to seven years. Allen spent a total of two years and four months locked up.

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A seasoned theatrical actor with multiple Tony Award nominations to his name, Charles S. Dutton moved into episodic television in 1991. He played garbage collector Roc Emerson on the Fox dramedy “Roc,” which made use of its star’s background by airing live for most of its run. “Roc” ran for three acclaimed seasons, while Dutton also took supporting roles in many popular and quintessential 1990s movies, including “Alien 3,” “The Distinguished Gentleman,” “Rudy,” and “Menace II Society.”

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In 1972, Dutton discovered his passion for acting when a friend gifted him a play script for Douglas Turner Ward’s “Day of Absence.” Dutton put on the play with other prisoners, as he was incarcerated in the Maryland State Penitentiary at the time. His term there began in 1967 with an 18-month sentence for manslaughter: After being stabbed seven times, he used the same knife to kill his assailant. Weapon possession and an assault of a prison guard added an additional 11 years to Dutton’s sentence. He was paroled around 1977.

Lori Loughlin found her signature role in 1988 when she joined the cast of “Full House.” Loughlin portrayed Becky Donaldson, co-anchor of local morning-show host Danny Tanner (Bob Saget), but then dated and married Danny’s live-in co-parent Jesse Katsopolis, which made her the kind and level-headed Aunt Becky to a generation of fans of the family-friendly “TGIF” programming block, until it disappeared. Loughlin remained with “Full House” until its finale in 1995 and worked steadily in TV, particularly in series and movies for Hallmark’s networks.

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The U.S. Department of Justice’s “Operation Varsity Blues” was a years-long investigation into fixers who charged large sums of money to rich people who wanted to get their children accepted into prestigious universities, and who weren’t averse to nefarious methods. One of the best-known names on the list of the 50 implicated people arrested in 2019 was Loughlin. With the assistance of her husband, she spent $500,000 to get her daughters into USC with a plan that included falsifying proof that they were top crew team athletes. After pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, Loughlin’s conviction resulted in a two-month prison sentence, carried out at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California.

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As the 1990s progressed, Mark Wahlberg evolved as an entertainer and grew right alongside his youthful audience. In 1991, Wahlberg debuted as radio-friendly tough-guy rapper Marky Mark and scored a No. 1 hit with “Good Vibrations.” Moving into a period as a Calvin Klein underwear model, Wahlberg focused his attention to acting, and by the decade’s end he was a serious star, dominating movies like “The Basketball Diaries,” “Fear,” “Boogie Nights,” and “Three Kings.”

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On the evening of April 8, 1988, a Vietnamese man named Thanh Lam parked his car outside of his home in the Boston suburb of Dorchester. As he walked up to his house, 17-year-old Wahlberg issued an unprovoked attack, yelling out profane racial slurs and beating the stranger in the head with a stick until it broke and the victim lost consciousness. That same day, Wahlberg found another Vietnamese resident, Hoa Trinh, and punched him in the eye. Wahlberg confessed to the police and after pleading guilty to felony assault, down from a possible attempted murder charge, he was sent to prison for 45 days.

If you or a loved one has experienced a hate crime, contact the VictimConnect Hotline by phone at 1-855-4-VICTIM or by chat for more information or assistance in locating services to help. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.

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At the very beginning of the 1990s, Amy Locane broke out in a big way with a role of Allison Vernon-Williams, an innocent teenager who falls in love with a sensitive motorcycle gang leader in John Waters’ campy ’50s movie spoof “Cry-Baby.” Roles in the college drama “School Ties” and heavy metal comedy quickly followed, but Locane is probably best known for her spot in the original cast of the hot ’90s primetime soap “Melrose Place,” portraying wannabe soap actor Sandy Louise Harling.

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While driving her SUV one night in June 2010 in Montgomery, New Jersey, Locane struck the back of one vehicle, and then hit another car making a turn into a driveway. The driver of the second car, Fred Seeman, was seriously hurt, while his passenger, Helene Seeman, died from the injuries sustained in the crash. Tests indicated that Locane’s blood alcohol level had been three times the legal driving limit at the time of the accident. Convicted of vehicular homicide in 2012, Locane was sentenced to three years in prison. Paroled early in 2015, Locane was sent back to prison from 2020 to 2024 after the local prosecutor reviewed the case and ruled the first sentence to be too light for the crime.

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Generally cast as pompous jerks with deep voices, Kelsey Grammer had plenty of roles before, after, and concurrently with Frasier Crane, but he played the part of the arrogant psychiatrist for so long that he’s forever intertwined with the character. Grammer started playing the role on “Cheers” in 1984, and when that series concluded in 1993, he immediately went on to star in the spinoff “Frasier,” which ran for 11 years and garnered the actor four Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

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After a 1987 arrest for driving while intoxicated in the Los Angeles area, Grammer arranged a plea bargain, admitting guilt in court and accepting an order to enter an alcohol rehab program. Nearly three years went by and Grammer didn’t fulfill his promise, so a California judge ordered the actor re-arrested and sentenced him to a month in jail and 10 days of community service. The same day he learned he’d have to be behind bars for 30 days, Grammer was sentenced in a different, cocaine possession-related case, earning a term of 90 days of house arrest.

A one-hit wonder child star who you may not know died, the late Dustin Diamond, who died from cancer in 2021 at age 44, played the genius but goofy mega-nerd Samuel “Screech” Powers” for the majority of his professional life. He landed the part on the late ’80s Disney Channel series “Good Morning, Miss Bliss,” and continued to play it when the show was rebooted as NBC’s Saturday morning teen sitcom “Saved By the Bell.” When Screech went to college, Diamond went to “Saved by the Bell: The College Years,” and upon Screech’s return to the fictional Bayside High as an employee, Diamond signed on for “Saved by the Bell: The New Class.”

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While spending the night of Christmas in 2014 at a bar in Port Washington, Wisconsin, Diamond found himself in the middle of a fight. The actor allegedly escalated the exchange considerably when he produced a 3.75-inch-long fold-up knife, stabbed the man with whom he was arguing, and then ran away. Police caught up with Diamond and his fiancée that night, and in his car they found the bloodied knife and took the accused to jail. 

As the stabbing victim recovered from the minor wound, Diamond was charged with minor offenses and in June 2015 was found guilty on misdemeanor counts of carrying a concealed weapon and disorderly conduct. Sentenced to four months in prison, Diamond earned parole three months into his term, but was returned to lockup in May 2016 due to a probation violation.

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With a smirking charisma and abundant confidence that he brought to his roles as miscreants, antiheroes, and dangerous types, Christian Slater was hailed by cultural critics as a newer, younger version of Jack Nicholson. That magnetism and charm led to lots of work for Slater in the 1990s, with major roles in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “Pump Up the Volume,” True Romance,” “Bed of Roses,” and “Untamed Heart,” among others.

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Slater was arrested for impaired driving in 1988, and when stopped again for the same crime in 1989, the actor sped away. When police caught up to him in an alley, he allegedly kicked one of the attending officers. After pleading no contest to the charges of evading arrest and drunk driving, Slater’s jail sentence was knocked down to 10 days. Then in 1997, Slater consumed so much tequila and cocaine at an apartment party in Los Angeles that he acted out violently to the other guests and a police officer called to the scene. Slater spent another 59 days behind bars for the acts he committed that evening, which he claimed that he did not remember, including punching one person, biting a second person, kicking a building custodian, and attacking the officer.

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The Fugees released a hip-hop classic in 1996 with “The Score,” a No. 1 hit that sold 5 million copies and showed off the immense rapping and singing talents of the trio’s undeniable star, Lauryn Hill. After putting out well-received singles like “Ready or Not” and a cover of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly,” the Fugees broke up not long after, leaving Hill ready to record a solo album. The universally acclaimed “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” earned its creator five Grammy Awards in 1999, including Best New Artist and Album of the Year. Hill never issued a follow-up LP.

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Hill claimed in court in 2012 that she’d quit the music industry, likening her contracts of the past to enslavement. That was the reason, Hill said, she hadn’t paid taxes on the $1.8 million she acquired from 2005 to 2007, nor given state and federal governments the $500,000 owed for 2008 and 2009. For failure to pay taxes, Hill was sentenced to three months in the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. Released a few days early for exemplary behavior, Hill then had to submit to three months of house arrest.

There’s a lot to know about Wesley Snipes, and one indisputable fact is that he was one of the biggest movie stars of the 1990s. He seemingly couldn’t miss with filmgoers, no matter if he was in a comedy, drama, action movie, or supernatural horror film. Snipes carried numerous beloved classics of the era, like “New Jack City,” “White Men Can’t Jump,” “Passenger 57,” “Demolition Man,” “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar,” “Waiting to Exhale,” and the first of three “Blade” movies as the vampire-hunting vampire Blade.

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In February 2008, a court in Florida ruled that Snipes was guilty of three misdemeanor counts of failing to file his tax returns. He’d initially stood accused of the felonies of tax fraud and conspiracy, and Snipes would’ve gone to prison for a total of 16 years if convicted of everything and fully punished. The case began when the actor was accused of neglecting to pay his taxes from 1999 to 2004. Sentenced to three years, Snipes served his time at the Federal Correctional Institution McKean in Pennsylvania from December 2010 until an early release in April 2013, at which point he was placed under house arrest for three months.

His work in the 2000s and beyond as Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe propelled Robert Downey Jr. to become one of the highest-grossing and highest-paid actors of all time, but back in the 1990s, he was emerging as one of the most dynamic and engaging performers in Hollywood. Downey starred in a variety of hit early ’90s movies, like “Air America,” “Soapdish,” “Natural Born Killers,” and “Chaplin,” for which he received his first Oscar nomination. 

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Police in Malibu, California, stopped Downey for erratic driving in June 1996, and a vehicular search produced heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, and a concealed weapon. Hours after his first hearing for that case a few weeks later, Malibu police again detained Downey for trespassing and heroin intoxication after he was found sleeping in a bedroom of a home that wasn’t his. Sentenced to rehab, Downey snuck out and upon capture was sent to the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail for nine days. 

Released on probation with the caveat that he’d allow himself to be drug tested occasionally, Downey didn’t turn in the tests and then spent 113 days in the Los Angeles County Jail. Paroled before the end of his sentence, Downey was supposed to submit drug tests, and after he failed to do so, the actor resided in the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison from late 1999 to August 2000.

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If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Rap took a turn into the frank and explicit in the 1990s, and rap wouldn’t be the same without Lil’ Kim, one of the first female hip-hop stars who embraced the style of the time. A protege of the Notorious B.I.G., Lil’ Kim (real name Kimberly Jones) appeared on Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s hit “Player’s Anthem” before exploring a solo career. Her debut album “Hard Core” generated big hits like “Crush on You” and the posse cut “Not Tonight” alongside Da Brat, Angie Martinez, and the often tragedy-affected Missy Elliott.

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Lil’ Kim, a friend, and her manager arrived at the New York rap radio station Hot 97 in 2001, spotted the rap collective Capone-N-Noreaga, and one member of the group mentioned an anti-Lil’ Kim comment in its song, “Bang, Bang.” The exchange grew heated, guns were fired, and arrests were made. When testifying to a grand jury about the incident, Lil’ Kim denied that her associates had been present, despite security camera footage and witnesses demonstrating they’d arrived together. Seeking to protect her team, Lil’ Kim was ultimately convicted in March 2005 on three charges of perjury and one of conspiracy, and received a prison sentence of one year and one day, of which she served around 10 months.

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