Musicians who are currently in jail

For better or for worse, our culture is fascinated by celebrities who turn criminal. How can someone so talented, so rich, and so famous throw it all away with awful or even evil choices that land them in prison for years?
Sure, one could adopt the skeptical, cynical attitude that celebrities seem to think that they’re above the law because so many arrested stars never serve time, but the truth is, plenty of famous folks do get convicted for their terrible deeds. From glam rocker Gary Glitter to music industry heavy-hitter Phil Spector to rapper Bobby Shmurda, here are some musicians from all levels of celebrity who are currently behind bars … and could be for a very, very long time.
Gary Glitter
With a name like “Glitter,” it’s not surprising that Gary Glitter was part of the “glam rock” movement of the ’70s. And if his name doesn’t ring a bell, you’ve probably heard at least one of his songs. While he had a long string of hits in his native U.K., he’s best known in the U.S. for “Rock and Roll Part 2” a hard-charging almost entirely instrumental tune that’s been played at basically every sporting ever since it was released in 1972. (It’s perhaps better known as the “Hey!” song.)
Anyway, at this point Glitter is probably better known for his incredibly heinous crimes than he is for his music. In 2015, Glitter (real name: Paul Gadd) was sentenced to 16 years on attempted rape, indecent assault, and sex with a minor. The crimes date back to the ’70s; Glitter snuck into a child’s bed and tried to have sex with her, and assaulted two girls he’d invited into his dressing room at a concert. Even worse is that this is the second time Glitter has been imprisoned for sex crimes. In 2006, he was sent to jail in Vietnam for molesting two pre-teenage girls.
Bobby Beausoleil
It’s well-known that the recently not-so-dearly departed cult leader and mass murderer Charles Manson was also a musician — he recorded an album and somehow convinced the Beach Boys to record a song he’d written. Manson had some other musicians in “The Family,” too, including Bobby Beausoleil, a member of a ’60s band called the Grass Roots, which, to avoid confusion with the more successful band by the same name (of which Creed Bratton of The Office was a member), changed its name to Love. That band recorded Forever Changes, one of the most
critically-acclaimed and influential albums of all time…but Beausoleil had moved on to bands with poorly-spelled, psychedelic-sounding names like the Orkustra and the Magick Powerhouse of OZ.
Then he gave it all up for Manson and murder. While working as a recruiter for his demented leader in 1969, Beausoleil acted on an order to fatally stab a man named Gary Hinman. It was the first murder connected to the Manson Family, and Beausoleil was sentenced to death. After California abolished the death penalty in 1972, Beausoleil’s punishment was changed to just life in prison. He’s eligible for parole in 2019.
Jim Gordon
If you’ve ever listened to classic rock radio, you’ve heard the work of Jim Gordon. He was an extremely active session drummer in the ’60s and ’70s; he played on Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers first album, Harry Nilsson’s
Nilsson Schmilsson, the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, and Derek and the Dominoes’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Song. That band was an Eric Clapton project, which scored the timeless hit “Layla.” Clapton and Gordon each wrote a part of the song of unrequited love — Clapton the first, rockin’ part, and Gordon the long, instrumental, piano-driven coda. Gordon somehow balanced a busy music career with severe mental health issues.
After a 1979 tour with Bob Dylan, he reportedly sought help more than a dozen times at different institutions to seek relief from schizophrenia. Then in 1983, as he told police detectives at the time, he “just snapped” — Gordon stabbed his 71-year-old mother to death. He’s been incarcerated ever since, and won’t be eligible for parole again until 2018. At his last hearing in 2013, a panel found Gordon to be “a danger to society if released from prison.”
C-Murder
For a hot minute in the late ’90s and early 2000s, the rap world was dominated by the No Limit label. Founded by Master P (Percy Miller), the label generated big hits for Master P himself, as well as for his brothers Silkk the Shocker (Vishonn Miller) and C-Murder (Corey Miller). In 2002, C-Murder attended a rap battle at the Platinum Club in Harvey, Louisiana. Also at the club: a 16-year-old No Limit fan named Steve Thomas, who used a fake ID to get in, so excited he was that C-Murder would be performing that night. At some point, a brawl broke out, C-Murder produced a gun, and he fatally shot Thomas. This isn’t the first time Miller pulled out a gun in a nightclub.
In 2001, he pulled a gun on the bouncer at Club Raggs in Baton Rouge, and then tried to shoot the club’s owner, Norman Sparrow, only to have the gun jam . He was found guilty of
second-degree murder, but the charge was overturned. No matter, because for killing Thomas, C-Murder got life in prison.
Jonathan King
The “one-hit wonder” is a curious thing. After scoring just one big hit and never anymore, these musicians fade into obscurity or often take a behind-the-scenes role in the music industry, like Gerardo (the “Rico Suave” guy went on to cultivate and develop new talent, including Enrique Iglesias), or Jonathan King. The British singer scored his one and only big American hit with “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon,” a top 20 hit in 1965. He racked up a bunch more hits in the U.K. and also wrote and produced a ton of music for others, including Genesis, the Bay City Rollers, and 10cc.
King also liked to sexually assault teenagers. In 2001, a London jury found King guilty of using his celebrity to lure five boys to his home in the ’80s, where he coerced them into having sex. In addition to being placed on a sex offender registry, King earned a seven-year prison sentence. In 2017, King was again arrested for a slew of charges in the same vein, accused of assault on several more teenage boys between 1970 and 1986. He’s currently out on conditional bail, but is still considered a criminal while he awaits his trial in 2018.
Phil Spector
Spector is one of the most influential musical architects of all time. In the ’60s, his well-named “Wall of Sound” production style led to hits for the Crystals and Ronettes, and influenced how major bands like the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones wanted their records to sound. He also had a penchant for waving guns around the studio to intimidate artists; Spector reportedly took aim at John Lennon, Leonard Cohen, Debbie Harry of Blondie, and the Ramones. He also kept his wife, Ronettes singer Ronnie Spector , imprisoned in their home. His gunplay and behavior toward women came to a tragic head one night in February 2003. Late at night, Spector left his suburban L.A. mansion and told his substitute chauffeur, Adriano de Souza, “I think I killed somebody.”
That somebody: 40-year-old actress Lana Clarkson, best known for the 1985 cult classic Barbarian Queen. In 2003, she worked at the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, which is where Spector met her and convinced her to go home with him. Hours later, she was dead from a gruesome gunshot to the mouth. Spector argued that Clarkson had “kissed the gun” and his defense team attempted to paint Clarkson as suicidal. After one trial in 2007 that ended in a hung jury, Spector was convicted of second-degree murder with use of a firearm in 2009. The 69-year-old musician received life in prison, and he won’t be eligible for parole until 2027.
Vybz Kartel
Along with more internationally successful artists like Sean Paul, Shaggy, and Beenie Man, Vybz Kartel helped popularize the amped-up form of reggae known as dancehall over the last decade and a half. The self-proclaimed “Worl’ Boss” (real name: Adidja Palmer) collaborated with Rihanna, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliott, Pitbull, and Major Lazer. His hit “Rampling Shop” was a hit on U.S. radio, even though it was banned from the airwaves in his native Jamaica for obscene lyrics. That’s far from the most controversial moment in Kartel’s life, because since 2014 he’s been serving a life sentence for murder.
In 2011, police say, Kartel believed a member of his inner circle, Clive “Lizard” Williams, stole a couple of guns from him, who Kartel then murdered and mutilated. Other members of Kartel’s crew were ruled complicit, and they received harsh sentences (Shawn Campbell and Kahira jones received a 25-year minimum term). After a 65-day trial, reportedly the longest in Jamaican history, Kartel was sentenced to life with his first parole eligibility hearing in 2049. What’s especially horrible, and what helped seal Kartel’s fate: Text messages where he admitted to cutting up and disposing of Williams’s body, which was never located. Among those messages from Kartel to crew:
“Tween me an u a chop we chop the boy Lizard fine fine. Yeah man a mince meat dat.”
Ian Watkins
Trigger warning: In 2013, Ian Watkins of the Welsh “nu metal” band lostprophets (they had a huge hit in the U.S. in 2004 with “Last Train Home”) was found guilty of unimaginably disgusting and heinous crimes against children. In a case that the presiding judge said “plunged into new depths of depravity” in which the defendant demonstrated “a complete lack of remorse,” Watkins was found guilty of 13 child sex offenses, including sexual assault and the attempted rape of an infant.
Watkins attested that his extensive drug use gave him no memory of all the horrible things that he did, but the judge said his behavior was “committed and determined,” as evidenced by a police raid pf his home that recovered 27 terabytes worth of violent child pornography. (That’s the equivalent of nearly 13,000 hours of footage.) Watkins was sentenced to a total of 35 years in prison. His co-defendants — they were the mothers of the children that Watkins assaulted, to whom they offered up to the rock star — got 14 and 17 years, respectively.
Bobby Shmurda
In 2014, there weren’t too many rappers who made a cultural impact quite like Bobby Shmurda (real name: Ackquille Pollard). His song “Hot N***a” was not only a top 10 hit, but the dance he created for the video, the
“Shmoney dance” became a popular meme, with countless others sharing Vine videos of themselves doing the moves. Another place Shmurda was influential: a New York street organization called GS9 connected to drug trade and violent crime. In June 2014, Shmurda was arrested for a gun found at a friend’s Brooklyn apartment, which he claimed was a prop for a video. In September 2016, Shmurda agreed to a plea deal that sent him to prison for seven years. He plead guilty to one count each of criminal weapon possession and conspiracy.