‘Hot felon’ Jeremy Meeks recalls how fame prevented family visits in prison
Model Jeremy Meeks, whose prison mug shot propelled him to stardom more than a decade ago, confessed that viral fame stopped his family from visiting him in jail.
Following his arrest as part of the Stockton Police Department’s so-called ‘Operation Ceasefire’ mission in 2014, an image of the 42-year-old was shared on Facebook.
The mugshot of Meeks, who was dubbed a ‘convicted felon, arrested for felony weapon charges’, amassed thousands of likes and eventually earned him a modelling contract with Jim Jordan’s White Cross Management.
Since embarking on his unlikely career, the father-of-two has walked in a Tommy Hilfiger fashion show, worked as a brand ambassador for Gisada Switzerland, and appeared in various movies.
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Earlier this week, the so-called ‘Hot Felon’ reflected on the 13 months he spent behind bars for firearm possession and how his viral mug shot caused disaster for his family.
“I’m still a month into my mug shot going viral. This is so fresh that I'm still getting letters,” he recalled on the Inside True Crime podcast.
“I got random, random f****ng people coming up to visit me.”
Meeks, who was incarcerated at Sacramento County Jail, said that he would point-blank refuse to meet fans or anybody whom he didn’t know.
He would apparently do this by looking through the glass and informing prison officers.
“They're like, ‘Well, I'm still taking your visit. You can deny it, but I'm still gonna take your visit for the week,'” Meeks said.
“So now my family can't come because I got f****ng random people coming to see me and it was so frustrating.”
He told podcast host Matthew Cox that he was once forced to ask two people who came back several times to see him that he needed to prioritise visits from his eldest son, Jeremy Jr., 17.
“It was rough,” he admitted. “And the only thing that made it rough is ‘cause my kids.”
As well as fanatics dropping into the jail, the so-called ‘Prison Bae’ said he received ‘probably 300 letters a day’ from devoted admirers.
“It was just too much. I’m getting naked pictures, money orders — just all kinds of money being sent in.”
Meeks, who shares Jeremy Jr. with his ex-wife, Melissa Meeks, welcomed his second son, Jayden, seven, with Sir Philip Green’s daughter Chloe, 35, in 2018.
“We're all co-parenting. They are incredible mothers,” he said in a 2020 interview with Extra.
He confirmed in April 2024 that he and the former Topshop heiress had split after two years together.
“I am single. I'm trying to focus on myself,” he said at the time.
More than a year later, he told Complex that he had been celibate for three years, alleging it was so that he couldn’t be ‘distracted’.
Topics: Celebrity, Crime, Social Media
Ella Scott