Robert Downey Jr. reflects on imprisonment: “the worst thing that has happened to me”
Actor Robert Downey Jr. has reflected on the time he spent in prison in the 1990s, saying that it is “the worst thing that has ever happened to me”.
Downey appeared on the recent edition of the Armchair Expert podcast to discuss his upcoming show Downey’s Dream Cars but also opened up on his imprisonment following being sentenced to three years in prison in 1999 after missing several court-ordered drug tests.
He claimed to have been “over-sentenced by an angry judge,” adding, “At some point, he said something in Latin, and I thought he was casting a spell on me.”
Downey spent time at North Kern State Prison in Delano, California, which he described as a “receiving centre where they decide where you’re going to go”.
“You could just feel the evil in the air, and that was no trouble at all because it was kind of like just being in a really bad neighbourhood,” he said. “There was no opportunity there. There were only threats.”
He continued to explain his experience at the prison. “We are programmed to, within a short amount of time, be able to adjust to things that are seemingly impossible.”
“And for me, there are worse things that could have happened than being sent to an institution, for sure,” he added. “However, we can only go by what we know, and I would imagine, if I had to guess, that was the worst thing that happened to me.”
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