It’s funny: with all the hijinks we seem to always hear celebrities getting involved in – drug abuse, various show-all videos, cellphone throwing – they seem to always be able to easily bounce back. Heck, they often come back stronger and more popular than they were previous. Such is the depraved society we live in, I guess.
However, when you throw in that one element that has been indelibly tied to celebs for decades – the car – things change. It’s issues behind the wheel that seem to be the best at actually getting these miscreant ne’er do well debutantes to have to either apologize or do time – or sometimes, disappear from the limelight completely. Ahh, the car – is there anything it can’t do?
Mel Gibson
The year 2006 may not seem that long ago but it’s over ten years ago now that our pal Mel had a few too many Foster’s and found himself at the behest of the Los Angeles Sheriff on the side of the road in his Lexus, open alcohol in hand. As if that wasn’t enough, he proceeded to hurl racial epithets and sexual slurs at the arresting officer. Small wonder there wasn’t a trace of Mel throughout the entire runtime of the 2015 remake of Mad Max, a film that empowered the females in its cast.
Lindsay Lohan
Oh Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay. Where do we start with you? Lohan, coked-up and boozed-up (with more of each in her car at the time), managed to beach her SL 65 – Ess-ell sixty-five! All 604 hp and 738 lb-ft of it! – on some shrubs in Beverly Hills, CA. If nothing else, she has the honour of having been behind the wheel of the most powerful car of any celeb on this list.
Lindsay Lohan, again
We could probably do a whole list of her offenses alone, but these two standouts will do for now. Lohan – under the influence of something, or many things – got herself into a car chase. Maybe she was just fulfilling a need that none of her movies had ever let her satisfy (and no, Herbie: Fully Loaded just doesn’t count). Maybe she wanted to put herself in the shoes of the paparazzi that were always chasing her.
Either way, she managed to grab a friend’s GMC Yukon and get hot on the tail of two separate cars. First, that of her personal assistant (who had quit earlier that night), who eventually got away. Further enraged, Lohan then proceeded to drive to said assistant’s mother’s house, who must’ve known Lohan the Terrible was coming, because she was allegedly pulling out just as Lohan arrived. Her car at the time? A Cadillac Escalade. Come to think of it, maybe all Lohan wanted was an upgrade.
Earl Simmons aka DMX
With the illegal dogfighting, drug abuse, and assault charges not being enough for the Yonkers, NY, rapper, he decided to take it to the streets. If Lohan has the honour of driving the most powerful car on this list, DMX has the dubious honour of driving the strangest one: a Ford Expedition SUV, outfitted with a removable light and siren that he used to actually pull someone over… so he could steal the guy’s car. That’ll be $240,000 in damages please, Mr. Simmons.
Britney Spears
It was the “shot seen ’round the world”, one that about a billion teenaged boys had been waiting for: Britney with no underwear on, getting out of a car. It may have seemed like a simple “wardrobe malfunction” à la Janet Jackson at the time, but it led to a steady decline for Britney. She has only just been able to bounce back, landing a spot with Caesar’s in Las Vegas, though that may soon be coming to and end, too.
Tiger Woods
The man once slated to be the next Jack Nicklaus may have been a spokesman for Buick, but it was at the wheel of another of The General’s sleds that everything started to unwind. Woods, having just been found a serial cheater – not at golf, though there’s been instances of that, too – by his supermodel wife Elin Nordegren, was trying to flee in his Cadillac Escalade when lovely Elin proceeded to attack. With a golf club, of course. Pretty sure it was a nine iron. Pretty sure she messed it up good, too, as Woods has been far from his once-destined-for-greatness self since.
Justin Bieber
Bit of an outlier, here, in that the Beebs is still going pretty strong. Give the kid credit though; deciding that being drunk wasn’t enough of a middle finger to John Law, he decided to tack on an underground drag race to the rap sheet. But hey! He was in Miami! What else are you going to do there on a wintry night in January? Not sure, but I doubt it involves retrieving your impounded Lamborghini Gallardo, as he eventually had to do. Sorry, Beebs; Lindsay’s still got you beat in the horsepower department.
Wayne Rooney
While Jeremy Clarkson would tell you that Bentley Continentals and Range Rovers are the preferred sleds of British footballers, when the Everton FC striker found himself drunk at the wheel (by three times the legal limit) and bathed in blue police-car lights, he was in a much more “proletarian” car: a VW Beetle. Forget the two-year driving ban; many would say the stain on his ego was punishment enough.
Nikolai Khabibulin
Many forget that the “Bulin Wall”, as he’s known, actually had quite the NHL career: he was one of the first Russian goalies to really make a splash in the NHL, played in four All-Star games, was twice nominated for the Vezina trophy and eventually earned a Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lighting in 2004. In 2010, now with the Edmonton Oilers, his play had begun to drop off when he was pulled over in his Ferrari in suburban Phoenix for speeding, with a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit. It was enough to put the Bulin Wall behind Bulin Bars for 30 days, though the sentence was eventually reduced to 15.
Mike Tyson
You hate to pick on Mike – like Lohan, he’s just such an easy target – but the circumstances surrounding his DUI arrest are just too good to ignore. There’s Mike, frantically trying to brush some un-snorted cocaine off the hood of his BMW as the Scottsdale, AZ PD looks on, likely laughing pretty darn hard.
