The tabloids and gossip blogs were abuzz yesterday with news that former Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver frontman Scott Weiland was back in jail, and had been for a month, after he was busted lifting toiletries from a drug store. The kicker, TMZ reported with its typical jovial certainty, was that when the cops caught up with Weiland, they found some meth in his possession, and that’s why he had presumably been stewing in his own juices in a jail cell on $95,000 bail, because after his long, ridiculous history with drugs, maybe his friends and loved ones were done bailing him out. OR… Weiland was never arrested and was in the studio with his bandmates when someone told him about the story.
Naturally, Weiland was quick to point out that the details of his latest demise were greatly exaggerated.
TMZ has changed its tune since yesterday, pointing the finger at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office for this ridiculous screw-up while taking maybe a gram of responsibility for pushing over the first domino.
Scott Weiland is the victim of a series of screw-ups as well as incredible deception. L.A. County Sheriffs officials now tell TMZ they were WRONG — the guy who’s been in custody for meth possession and burglary for A MONTH is NOT who they thought it was — Scott Weiland.
TMZ posted a story late Thursday that Weiland was currently behind bars after allegedly stealing razors from a Bev Hills drug store in late July. The Bev Hills cops said when they searched him they found meth.
Apparently the guy said he was Scott, and cops believed him. (Via TMZ)
According to the Los Angeles Times, 44-year old Jason Michael Hurley was arrested on July 26 on suspicion of shoplifting and possession of a controlled substance, and because he looks like Weiland and even has the same birthday, he was apparently able to trick police into thinking that he is the guy who sang “Interstate Love Song.” I’m just assuming at this point that instead of fingerprinting him, the arresting officers accepted the chorus of “Big Empty.”
But instead of calling Weiland’s reps, the very unapologetic staff at TMZ just went head-first with the police report, and fortunately the magical elves that live inside my computer made this screen cap of yesterday’s TMZ headline so everyone can see the difference a day makes.
Additionally, here is what TMZ’s original report claimed.
Cops tell us … Scott went to a Bev Hills Rite-Aid late last month and pilfered some razors and other cosmetic items. When a security guard tried stopping him, Scott breezed out, but not for long. Cops nabbed him down the block, searched him and found what they say was methamphetamine.
We’re also told Scott pulled the celeb card, telling cops, “I’m Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots.”
It didn’t work. He’s been in jail the last 4 weeks on $95,000 bond.
This morning? No “We’re sorry,” “Our bad” or even “Oops, y’all” for reporting that a guy with a long, weird history of drug abuse and subsequent battles with sobriety had been sitting in jail because of meth. But that part might be handled by Weiland’s lawyers.
It’s hard to keep track of Weiland’s exploits in substance abuse, but he admitted to MTV in 2008 that he had “a very short binge with coke” in 2007, which coincided with the loss of his brother (drug overdose) and his second wife, Mary Forsberg, leaving him. Weiland and Forsberg actually met in 1991, when he was 23 (she was 16) and they shot heroin together, because love. That’s just one of the many stories that he told 10 years ago in a story published by Esquire, as he detailed the many, many, many drug-fueled exploits of his life, including that time he spent a month in the Chateau Marmont doing heroin with Courtney Love. I’m no expert, but any time you find yourself getting higher and higher to avoid sex with Love, that should be the last sign you need to give it all up.
