The arrest that ignited Woody Harrelson’s rebellious streak
Woody Harrelson used to be a real hellraiser. An alleged incident in a London taxi cab led to a police chase and resulted in the actor needing to be bailed out of jail. In 1996, he was arrested in Kentucky after planting four hemp seeds in protest over the state’s marijuana laws. In 2008, a video emerged of Harrelson allegedly attacking a paparazzo outside of a nightclub. The photographer, Josh Levine, sued for £2.5million in damages, but the charges were eventually dropped.
The actor, who has since calmed down considerably, has spoken about how his early rise to fame contributed to his raucous behaviour. Harrelson became a huge star following his appearances on the sitcom Cheers when he was in his early 20s. While not everyone who gets famous at this age goes wild, it can have a detrimental effect on one’s behaviour.
It turns out that Harrelson was getting arrested long before Cheers, though. Speaking with The Guardian, the star of Natural Born Killers recounted an early run-in with the law. It came after a night out in Cleveland, Ohio, when the Texan was just 21 years old. “I jumped out the truck, wearing the cuffs, and ran across the parking lot, and there was never going to be a good ending to that,” Harrelson recalled. “But those cops were cruel to me, you know. It sure ended any fascination I’d ever had with being a cop.”
Ironically, Harrelson had started out wanting to be a police officer. “I was probably influenced by stuff I’d watched,” he said. “Thinking how glorious it would be. But, oh my God, that would have been horrible.” He then used the interview, which was conducted in 2018, to channel some of his political frustrations. “Can you imagine me protecting President Trump?” he asked of his rhetorical career in law enforcement. “I’d pin a fricking target on him.”
He might have never joined the force in real life, but Harrelson has played a cop many times on TV and in films. He appeared as Bill Willoughby, police chief and subject of public scrutiny in Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. In 2014, he shone as Detective Marty Hart, one-half of the central pairing in the first season of True Detective. “I generally have a weird time with authority,” Harrelson said in a less-than-shocking revelation. “So when I first played a cop I thought ‘I don’t know if I can do it.’”
It’s not just Harrelson’s own history that has brought him into conflict with the law. His father, Charles Voyde Harrelson, was convicted of assassinating federal judge John H Wood Jr in 1982. Charles was also convicted of armed robbery in the 1960s and a separate murder case in 1973, this time of a grain dealer named Sam Degelia. If all that wasn’t enough, he also claimed to have been involved in the killing of John F. Kennedy, although that has never been proven. Charles died in prison in 2007, having had little contact with his famous son.
Though he’s not getting thrown in the back of police wagons these days, Harrelson continues to be an outspoken proponent of his own views. During the pandemic, he criticised the wearing of masks, calling them “absurd”. During the 2024 US Presidential Campaign, he narrated a video promoting independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, who himself had spread dubious claims over vaccines and Covid-19.
